G Chaser 4: Reaper
by BDM
Summary: When one of his friends is attacked by the sadistic killer known only as the Reaper, Alan Tyler's investigation takes him into the depths of the virtual reality known as the Matrix. Adapted from the game "Ripper" by Take-Two Interactive.
1. Bloody Renovation

Disclaimer: This story is an adaptation of the videogame "Ripper", all copyrights of which belong to Take-Two Interactive.

**Bloody Renovation**

_All our times have come  
Here but now they're gone  
Seasons don't fear the Reaper  
Nor do the wind, the sun or the rain... We can be like they are_

Come on baby... Don't fear the Reaper  
Baby take my hand... Don't fear the Reaper  
We'll be able to fly... Don't fear the Reaper  
Baby I'm your man

_Valentine is done  
Here but now they're gone  
Romeo and Juliet  
Are together in eternity... Romeo and Juliet  
40,000 men and women everyday... Like Romeo and Juliet  
40,000 men and women everyday... Redefine happiness  
Another 40,000 coming everyday... We can be like they are  
_

_Come on baby... Don't fear the Reaper  
Baby take my hand... Don't fear the Reaper  
We'll be able to fly... Don't fear the Reaper  
Baby I'm your man..._

Love of two is one  
Here but now they're gone  
Came the last night of sadness  
And it was clear she couldn't go on  
Then the door was open and the wind appeared  
The candles blew then disappeared  
The curtains flew then he appeared... Saying don't be afraid

Come on baby... And she had no fear... 

_And she ran to him... Then they started to fly  
They looked backward and said goodbye... She had become like they are  
She had taken his hand... She had become like they are_

Come on baby...Don't fear the Reaper

_**(Don't Fear) The Reaper, by Blue Öyster Cult**_

It had been a long time since he had last heard that song. While he was sure many would debate the actual quality of the song, he held a lot of emotional attachment to it regardless. He remembered first hearing it back in 1976, at the tender age of ten years. Before that point, he hadn't paid much attention to music, but one of his friends at school had introduced him to it, as well as several other classic rock songs.

While all of the songs had kindled an interest in rock music that had lasted to this day, this song in-particular had stood out. He found it paradoxical how a song could be so relentlessly catchy and yet so hauntingly sad at the same time. He knew the song was about suicide, but he had always found something about the title that was sort of inspirational. When he became a G-Chaser, one of the first lessons he had learned was to not fear the prospect of almost-certain death. As such 'Don't Fear the Reaper' had become a sort of mantra that he lived by, one that had stuck with him in the decades he had lived through.

As the song ended, he switched to a different version of the song, one that had once been played live with more drum fills and a big rock finish. He sat at the small desk in the corner of his apartment, shifting his gaze between his word-processor - complete with half-finished document - and a painting on his wall of a cityscape drawn art-deco style. He hated trying to write articles, for he found himself with frequent cases of writer's block, but he preferred being busy in the quiet periods between shadowruns. Those covert operations seemed to have dried up lately, and he was beginning to worry about this, for as dangerous as those jobs were they were by far the best-paying jobs. Writing just didn't cut it in this day and age.

As a stroke of inspiration came to him and he began to type more words onto the page, there was a knock on the apartment door. Cursing as his concentration was thrown off again, he crossed over to the door and peered through the peep-hole. A young Japanese woman was stood on the other side, with long black hair, a maroon T-shirt, blue jeans and black boots. He smiled slightly as he recognised her and opened the door to let her in.

"Evening, Miki," he said, standing aside to let the woman walk into the apartment. He shut the door behind her, crossing back over to his writing-desk.

"Didn't think you'd be coming round this evening," he continued. "I thought Sparks would want all hands on deck."

"Not this evening, Alan," Miki Saegusa replied. "He's been awfully secretive tonight. Well, you know him; he's always got one dodgy deal or another going on in that place. Still, you'd think..."

Ever since she had been forced to leave her old, very prestigious job behind one year ago, Miki had managed to stay afloat by working at the bar owned by Sparks, the dwarf rigger of Alan's shadowrunning team. She also helped out on shadowruns; her previous knowledge of the inner workings of megacorporations had helped out a lot, as well as her abilities as a psychic. She paused in her speaking to gaze over at Alan's sound system, now hearing the music change to another classic rock number. Her face was contorted into a look of disbelief.

"What is this?" she asked. "It sounds like another illegal something Sparks would play at the bar."

"It's Blue Öyster Cult," Alan replied, turning away from his word processor. "I'm writing an article about them for a retro music magazine."

"I remember you saying you worked freelance," Miki said. "Anything interesting to say about them?"

"Well, here's something that might give you a laugh," Alan replied. "They once did a song dedicated to Godzilla back in 1977. They offended just about everyone with it; aid workers, the government, not to mention just about everyone in Japan still recovering from the most recent attack. This song ended up getting banned. The band did manage to get back on their feet after that fiasco, but technically the ban on this song was never lifted even after Godzilla was presumed dead. You have no idea how much trouble I had getting the sound-file." At this, Miki giggled.

"I said it might give you a laugh," Alan said, nodding.

"I've just started wondering," Miki began, "what President Knight would-"

"_Former_ President, Miki," Alan corrected her rather forcefully. "Besides the fact that he's not President anymore, you ought to be on first-name terms with him, given your 'condition'."

"Alright, alright," Miki shrugged. "No need to bite my head off. Anyway, I wonder what Kiryuu would make of such a dedication. He'd probably find it highly amusing."

"I wouldn't know," Alan replied. "I never found out what sort of music he's into, or even if he listens to music. I did hear once that he was a keen player of the Halo games, though."

"What's 'Halo'?" Miki asked, looking puzzled.

"Oh, never mind," Alan replied. "That, like just about everything else in this apartment, was well before your time."

Miki just nodded rather dumbly. She looked around the apartment, taking in the sights of all the old electronic goods and movie posters lining the walls. She could tell that Alan was addicted to the 20th and early 21st centuries. She knew that those years meant a lot to Alan, but she still found it funny how he couldn't seem to stand modern technology.

Miki knew that Alan was a mutant; she knew of the experiments that had been performed on him, in an effort to cross his DNA with Godzilla's own. She had learned all of this last year, after an unpleasant encounter with the other victims of those experiments. Over the past year, she had gotten used to the idea, and now it seemed to be just another point of idle discussion between them. Of Alan's shadowrunning team, she was the only one who knew about any of this, and for some reason that made her feel rather privileged. She looked at Alan's left arm, which was covered in hard grey scales with a four-fingered claw in place of a hand. She couldn't help both pitying Alan and admiring him for all that he had been through.

Alan, in turn, was crazy about Miki. He had come to find a lot that was very attractive about her; her honesty and kind nature coupled with a refusal to take any rubbish from anyone was one he found very appealing. He had come to know and like her a lot during the last year, and mentally debated whether or not to take this beyond mere friendship. He turned away from his writing to look at her with those golden reptilian eyes of his.

"Can I get you anything?" Alan asked. "Any drinks, or anything?"

"No, thanks," Miki replied. She glanced out of the window, where the evening sky was beginning to cloud over. All signs pointed to there being a thunderstorm, and sure enough a deep rumbling noise was heard some distance away.

"Great..." she muttered. "Another storm in Seattle. As if we don't get enough of them already..."

All of a sudden there was a shrill beeping coming from Alan's commlink, strapped to his reptilian arm. He muttered a few choice curses at being interrupted, and switched on. An avatar that looked like a cartoony green lion appeared on the holographic screen, looking in a considerable state of distress. He recognised this as belonging to his hacker teammate, Zapper, though he had never seen a distressed expression on this avatar before.

"Zapper?" he asked. "What is it? I'm kind of busy here."

"Ryuu..." Zapper's voice could be heard. His tone worried Alan a lot; he sounded very faint, in a state of complete shock, his breathing decidedly ragged.

"I..." he continued to stammer, "I didn't know who else to turn to... I need your help, real bad..."

"Slow down, mate," Alan said, trying to calm him down. "Just calm down. What is it? How can I help?"

"It's..." Zapper hesitated for a moment, his voice almost completely breaking down into a howl of dismay.

"It's Catherine..." he finally said. "The Reaper got her."

***

The past year had been a turbulent one for Alan's shadowrunning hacker, Zapper. Originally christened Cale LeRoi (at least that was what his 'legal' SIN said anyway), his frustrations with his leader's apparent lack of trust in those who were supposed to be his friends had mounted. Ever since that incident the previous year, he had found his leader had become more withdrawn, and had been spending an awful lot of time with Miki of late. He had tried to find out more about his leader through his hacking, but nothing on him seemed to exist. That was understandable, after the Second Crash, but it was frustrating all the same.

The shadowruns were becoming few and far between of late, so Zapper had forced himself to get what some might call a 'real job' for the sake of getting by. Through his many connections in the Matrix, he had been able to secure himself a job as a reporter for the Seattle Herald, a newspaper that was mostly distributed online. He mostly dealt with features on happenings in the Matrix and the latest technological toys available on the market.

That had been until roughly a week ago, when the Reaper killings started. A string of violent murders had occurred across the city recently. Death was not something especially new on the streets of Seattle, but what shocked people about these killings was the sheer viciousness of them. The victims had literally been slashed limb from limb, ripped apart with such intense ferocity. What was especially strange was that the killings had all happened in areas with very heavy security, with no obvious pattern.

Zapper had found himself given a very hasty promotion, for of all the reporters in the city the so-called "Reaper" had picked him to be his instrument of communication. He (at least many assumed it was a he) sent riddles and bold statements proclaiming his triumphs to Zapper personally, demanding that he print them in the newspaper. Zapper had tried to trace the Reaper's communications through the Matrix, but the Reaper was far too clever, apparently a master at covering his online tracks. No-one knew who he was or how he was killing people so viciously, and everyone was frightened, living in fear that they could be next.

It was at the newspaper where Zapper had met his current girlfriend, Catherine Powell, a reporter of some five years. The two of them were working together to crack the Reaper case, for Zapper had decided to take a personal hand in the investigation due to the Reaper contacting him. Now it seemed Catherine was about to pay the price for their investigations...

Zapper had wanted to meet Alan at the police station in downtown Seattle. Out of concern for his teammate, Alan had agreed, and so it was on that wet evening, the raindrops bouncing off of the tarmac with great force, that Alan steered his motorbike into the covered visitor parking area, where he found the spiky-haired elf waiting for him. Zapper looked very shaken.

"Ryuu?" Zapper asked faintly, addressing Alan by his call-sign as Alan parked the bike and switched off the engine. The mutant walked over to Zapper, looking concerned.

"I'm here, mate," he replied. "You holding up alright?" At this, Zapper shot Alan a very icy look.

"Do I look like I'm doing alright?!" he almost yelled. "The Reaper's still out there, taunting me, and Catherine..." At this, he turned away, snarling. Alan could sense that Zapper's feelings for Catherine were very real indeed; he had never seen the elf so badly shaken before. Usually nothing fazed him.

"Alright, look," Alan said, trying to sound reasonable. "Why not just tell me what happened, right from the beginning? I get the feeling you wanted to speak to me before you spoke to the cops, or else why would I be here?"

"Yeah..." Zapper replied faintly. He allowed Alan to steer him to a bench looking out across the police station's courtyard, where a fountain was becoming full to bursting with rainwater. On the fountain was a heavily-graffitied statue of Justice, for the police station doubled not only as a courthouse, but also a prison. Zapper's eyes were facing in its direction, but he did not seem to be looking at anything at all as he began to recount the experiences of the day.

"My editor," he said, "Ben Dodds, called me at 3am to give me the news. There'd been a third victim, a woman this time. The murder had taken place at the old City Library. You know how it's been turned into an apartment block, what with most of the library's resources now on the Matrix? I decided to go there myself while Catherine made another attempt to trace the Reaper's signal. The crime scene was one of the larger apartments, so the victim was pretty well-to-do. Of course, the police were already there, checking things out.

"They've got a new detective on the case," he said. "You remember me telling you that Det. Goldstein came down with HMHVV?"

Alan nodded. HMHVV, or the Human-Metahuman Vampiric Virus, was a very nasty piece of work that turned its victims into undead creatures such as ghouls and vampires. Alan himself was immune to it, but he hated the thought of it still having a presence in the city.

"Well, the new detective," Zapper continued, "is a real hard-ass called Vincent Rigden."

"Rigden?" Alan suddenly asked.

"You know him?" Zapper asked, wide-eyed.

"No," Alan replied quickly. "I used to know a 'Rigden', that's all. Anyway, go on."

"Well," Zapper continued, "the encounter wasn't exactly friendly. Here, I'll let you listen for yourself..."

He pressed some buttons on his commlink, until an audio file began to play. Alan knew that their commlinks had small microphones installed, so that they could record sensitive conversations easily and covertly. Now an extremely rough, haggard voice was speaking. For some reason that voice made Alan's hair stand on end; it was so harsh, giving the impression of a very uncompromising attitude.

"_Figured you'd get here sooner or later, LeRoi,"_ the voice gruffly spoke. Alan deduced that this was Detective Rigden he was listening to, and he felt that this was not a man he wanted to get on the wrong side of.

"_You can't get enough of this story, can you?"_ Rigden asked, making no effort to hide his sarcasm.

"_I think everybody's had enough of this story,"_ Zapper's voice could be heard, sounding unflappable. _"And you are?"_

"_Detective Vincent Rigden, SPD,"_ Rigden curtly replied. _"I know ol' Goldstein gave you a lot of leeway, but this is my investigation now, so you better watch your a**."_

The sound of muffled footsteps could then be heard. It sounded like the room was well-carpeted. It was then that he heard the sound of Zapper retching slightly. The smell in that room with the body had to be appalling. Alan was too used to it to care, but he could imagine Zapper getting decidedly queasy.

"_Cold Carl Styzyack,"_ Zapper could be heard saying. _"We've gotta stop meeting like this."_ There was a moment of silence, before Zapper suddenly shouted, _"Carl!"_

"Carl's the pathologist," the Zapper sat next to Alan explained. "He's been working on all the Reaper's victims. So far, zippo."

"_Sorry, LeRoi,"_ a reedy, nervous-sounding voice could be heard saying.

"_Was there any difference between this murder and the previous ones?"_ Zapper asked.

"_It was identical,"_ Carl sighed. _"Absolutely identical. It was a precision cut; a perfect line, cut so as to empty the body cavity. The organs were blown all around the room!"_

Alan couldn't begin to imagine what had gone on in that apartment. It sounded too sick for words.

"_So it was the same killer?"_ Zapper asked, though it sounded like he already could guess the answer.

"_That's for sure,"_ Carl replied wryly. _"I mean the organs... They were completely cut to pieces! I've never seen anything like this in my life... It's amazing, in its own sick way."_

"_Any clues as to how it was done?"_ Zapper asked.

Carl just gave a deep sigh. _"Don't ask me,"_ he said simply. _"You'd think I'd be used to seeing things like this by now, but I'm not. Whoever did this..."_ He paused for a moment, as if trying to find an appropriate phrase.

All that came out was, _"It's beyond madness. It's pure evil."_

"Sounds melodramatic," Alan stated.

"I would have thought so too," Zapper replied. "Until I saw the apartment. It was... horrible. No-one in their right mind could have done something like this, and I thought I'd seen it all." He sighed as the sound file continued to play.

"_Any idea what weapon he's using?"_ Zapper was saying.

"_Take a look at this mess,"_ was Carl's response. _"It has to be something big; a sword, axe, monofilament whip, something like that. You can't cut through all that bone and muscle with a dagger, and the strength it would take to make a cut like that... He'd have to be enormous, even if he was packed to the gills with cyberware and drugs. I'll talk to you about it some more later, once I've got this body to the morgue and given it a more thorough look."_

"_So any real progress in the investigation at all?"_ Zapper asked.

"_Who knows?"_ Carl sighed. _"Unlike Goldstein, trying to get anything out of Rigden's next to impossible. Besides, if he does have a lead, he'd sure as hell never share it. He might lose his bounty if he does that."_ He chuckled slightly at his own little joke.

"_Well, you've been in the department for years,"_ Zapper said impatiently. _"What's your hunch?"_

"_Well, something's buggin' him,"_ Carl replied, _"but who am I to talk? I'm having nightmares about this. I've been in forensics for twenty-two years, and nothin's ever got to me like this. Now I can't sleep."_

"_You just need a vacation, that's all,"_ Zapper said, encouragingly.

"_I hope you're right,"_ Carl replied, sadly.

"_Thanks, Carl,"_ Zapper finished. _"You take care."_ More muffled footsteps could be heard, which quickly stopped.

"I took a quick look at the victim's terminal," Zapper explained. "I noticed it was switched on, which I thought was odd. I couldn't see much on the screen; it was covered in blood like everything else. I couldn't tell what it was she was last looking at, and I didn't dare jack in with Rigden watching me. Speaking of which..." he paused as more footsteps were heard, "I got a chance to question him too."

"_Don't go taking any souvenirs, LeRoi,"_ Rigden's harsh voice spoke up from the audio file, almost making Alan jump.

"I did the same," Zapper said wryly. "He snuck up behind me with that one."

"_Same MO as the others?"_ Zapper asked on the audio file.

"_You got it,"_ Rigden replied. _"Look around you, a**hole. If anything, this is more gruesome than the other two. Hell of a lot more splatter."_

"Who was the victim?" Alan asked.

"I was just getting to that..." Zapper muttered.

"_Who's the victim?"_ the recorded Zapper asked at that moment.

"_Name's Stein,"_ Rigden replied. _"May Stein. Age fourty-three, book editor, human."_

"_Any connection to the other two?"_ was Zapper's next question, anticipating Alan's next query.

"_Well, let's see..."_ Rigden replied, sounding rather snotty. _"Estevez was a programmer and dwarf, Mendell a dry-cleaner and orc. It'll take me fourty-eight hours to run it down, but there's no connection here."_

"_You have any clues?"_ Zapper asked, in a tone that sounded somewhat cheeky to Alan.

"_No sign of forced entry,"_ Rigden stated, _"nothing was disturbed. Two sets of prints; hers and her mother's. The only thing not where it should be is this woman's insides."_

"_But what about witnesses?"_ Zapper asked. _"This guy must have been a bloody mess. Even if it's three o'clock in the morning, somebody must have seen him."_

"_As far as I know,"_ Rigden irritably said, _"he only left us with one witness, and she's feeling a little fragmented at the moment. This guy... He's un-fucking-believable!"_

"How's anybody taking this guy seriously?" Alan snorted. That statement had come completely out of left-field, as far as he was concerned. Zapper just shrugged.

"_Why's her computer on?"_ Zapper asked, after a moment's silence.

"_It looks like she was in a public library node,"_ Rigden responded. _"Now let me ask you a question; you got any heads-ups, maybe something from your little pen-pal?"_

"_He writes after the fact, not before,"_ Zapper sighed. _"You should know that, Rigden. I never held out on Goldstein, and I wouldn't hold out on you."_

"_Of course not!"_ Rigden snarled. _"You've been very good about sharing what you know, with the department and several million other people! I should have busted you when you ran that first letter without letting us know about it!"_

"Ouch..." Alan muttered. "He's got you there."

"Yeah, well," Zapper mumbled. "Goldstein was always a bit soft in the head. Not this guy, though."

"_Alright,"_ Rigden continued, _"visiting hours are over. There's nothing here you haven't seen at the other murder sites except a few extra gallons of body fluids."_

"_You shouldn't be touching anything,"_ Zapper suddenly asked, _"should you, Rigden?"_

"He had a piece of paper in his hand," Zapper explained. "When I pointed this out to him, he just dropped it on the floor, gave me a cold look then walked out." He stopped the playback at this point, pulling a rolled-up piece of paper out of his pocket. "I was lucky to be able to remove this from the apartment without anyone noticing."

He showed the paper to Alan. On it was what looked like a series of lines, all in six groups of six and each line of varying thickness. On it was also written the word 'Salisbury'.

"What's this supposed to be?" Alan asked.

"It looks like a barcode cipher," Zapper said. "I think the Seattle Central Library node uses them as ID numbers for the books, so if nothing else we can find out what was the last thing she was reading in there. 'Salisbury' is probably her account password."

"Not much to go on, is it?" Alan said.

"Too right," Zapper sighed. "Anyway, after that I spent the day typing up the Reaper's letter to be broadcast on the Matrix. Catherine hadn't been into the office all day. Then I got a call from her. She said that she was onto something, possibly involving the Reaper, and told me to go wait for her at her apartment if I didn't hear from her in an hour. I tried asking Ben about it, but he was as stumped as I was. She was only supposed to be helping me, considering the Reaper only writes to me, but she was acting like it was her own story...

"Then, about an hour later, that was when the Reaper called me again." Zapper's skin started to go pale. "I wasn't able to trace the source of his call again. Just... have a look. I haven't shown this to anyone else yet..."

He switched over to a video file, and instantly what looked like a large, glowing ruby against a black background filled Zapper's commlink screen. At first, Alan thought he could see other parts of this being, just out of sight, but he reasoned that must have been a trick of the light. The ruby glow was V-shaped, giving the impression of a mouth or an eye. As the Reaper spoke, the ruby glow flashed every so often:

"_Dear Boss,"_ the Reaper's voice spoke, in a deep, metallic voice that echoed and seemed to cause the hairs on Alan's neck to stand on end, _"have you seen my work this morning yet? Your stories make the cops seem so competent. None of you know how I do it, you never will, and you shouldn't let your girlfriend do your work for you. She is close to me, and I'm not laughing... She's... my... next... job... If she gets it today, the story's all yours. Yours truly, Reaper."_

As the Reaper finished, the ruby glow filled the whole screen before fading. Alan was silent. He remembered how Zapper had shown him the Reaper's letters on the news, but that voice never failed to send a chill down Alan's spine.

"Needless to say," Zapper said, his voice sounding more faint, "I got out of the office and ran to Catherine's apartment. Usually it takes an hour to cross that part of the sprawl, but I did it in twenty minutes." He sighed, shaking his head. "I'm still kicking myself in the ass for letting Catherine go out alone. Everything looked okay in her apartment, but then Catherine showed up...

"She..." he stammered, "she staggered in. She looked like a zombie. She only managed to breath out the words 'the Reaper' before collapsing. I tried to revive her, but her pulse was so erratic. I shouted out, and luckily one of the neighbours heard the commotion and called the emergency services while I stayed with Catherine.

"The good news is that she isn't dead, but the bad news is that she's now in a coma deeper than I thought possible. The ever-helpful Detective Rigden had her taken to the Tribecca Centre for Cyber-Studies."

"That new clinic they just put up?" Alan asked. "It's also known as the MediCog, right?"

"Yeah..." Zapper replied faintly. "Then I called you, and that's where we're at now." He stood up at that point, trying to put on a brave face, even though Alan could see sweat running down his face. "I'm going into the police station to talk to a few contacts and try to retrieve Catherine's commlink. For some reason I can't hack into it remotely, but hopefully she'll have left me a message on there."

Alan nodded. "Count me in," he said. "I'll help you in any way I can to catch this psycho. I'm sure Miki and Sparks will too. We all have to watch out for each other in the shadows, and this time's no different."

Zapper nodded appreciatively. Alan didn't say that he also doubted Zapper's state of mind at present. He wanted to be present in case the elf did anything rash. The attack on Catherine had shaken him harder than Alan thought possible, so he knew it wasn't safe for Zapper to be on his own right now.

With that, the two of them walked through the parking bay and headed into the police station itself.


	2. The Crooked Arm of the Law

**The Crooked Arm of the Law**

Seattle Police Station was full to the brim with prisoners. The department had had to expand a numerous amount of times just to accommodate the amount of gang members and various other assorted criminals in the city. As a result, the place was officially recognised as a county jail, as well as incorporating a courthouse after the old one was burned to the ground, but it kept the moniker of "police station" out of some twisted sense of nostalgia.

The police station itself was on the top level, with most of the rooms suspended high above the main prison floor. The place had a very cold feel to it, with just about every wall covered in the colour of gun-metal grey and numerous walkways connecting from the central elevator to the various areas of the department. It made Alan feel like he was walking around inside a submarine.

He and Zapper stepped off the elevator and headed to the front office, just as an irate cop pushed past them dragging an equally irate prisoner to the main holding area. Zapper walked up to the front desk, where a balding, bespectacled officer dwarf with a large black beard sat quietly sipping at a paper cup of coffee. He looked up and sighed as Zapper approached him.

"Hey, LeRoi," he greeted him somewhat warmly. "So the Reaper strikes again... I guess we'll be seeing your work on the front page again; another body and another byline."

"You know," Zapper retorted, leaning on the desk, "if you just catch this guy, Brandon, I can go back to writing about hacker technology on page 12."

Officer Brandon nodded, and then shifted to a more sympathetic look. "Sorry to hear about your partner. She was a nice girl." He looked behind Zapper to look at Alan, who was leaning nonchalantly against the wall. "Though it looks like you jumped ship pretty quickly."

"Oh, don't mind him," Zapper said dismissively. "Work experience boy. I'm just showing him the ropes." He looked back and winked at Alan, who looked like Zapper had just slapped his mother.

"Still," Brandon said, returning his gaze to Zapper, "I liked Catherine when she came around here."

"She used to come down here?" Zapper asked, sounding rather surprised.

"Came down here all the time," Brandon replied. "She used to do all your legwork."

"Oh right, right," Zapper said, shaking himself. "Well, I can't do everything, can I? Which is why I agreed to let this guy tag along." He indicated Alan again before turning to him.

"Well?" he asked forcefully. "Aren't you going to ask the nice cop some questions?" His elvish features were twisted into a broad grin. Clearly he was enjoying this whole ruse a bit too much. Alan just sighed, walking towards the desk and looking Brandon in the eye. The cop seemed to flinch as his eyes took in the mutant's appearance.

"Any clues from the library?" Alan asked. He had been very curious about the library access, and wondered if it held some relevance to the case. "It was the last place Stein was seen alive, after all."

"Well, standard operating procedure is to make a copy of all library content," Brandon explained. "You know, Matrix files, that kind of thing."

"So how can we get our hands on what they found?" Zapper chimed in.

"LeRoi," Brandon sighed, "it's a public library. They'll still have the files. We just copied them."

Zapper nodded. So it looked like he wouldn't need to do any serious hacking to get the files. Alan knew that Zapper hated tackling police networks because of the over-abundance of security measures such as ICs, so that was one thing they didn't have to worry about.

"I'll tell you something..." Zapper said, keeping his voice low. "Rigden wasn't all together at the murder site. Looks like he might have trouble following Goldstein's footsteps."

"That's lucky for you," Brandon shrugged.

"No, I'm serious," Zapper continued. "There was this one... strange thing."

"Strange?" Brandon asked, looking sceptical.

"If I didn't know any better," Zapper pressed on, "I'd say that he was intentionally trying to hide a piece of evidence."

"Well, it wouldn't be the first time," Brandon sighed, rolling his eyes.

"He's done that before?" Alan cut in.

"Yeah!" Brandon said, rather excitedly. "He hides it, destroys it, withholds it... You name it!"

"This is common knowledge?" Alan asked, sounding grim. The Rigden he remembered would never have stood for such things.

"Yeah," Brandon continued. "He's like King Shit of the bounty collectors, and the Chief gets a piece of it." He turned to Zapper, who was looking at Brandon with narrowed eyes. "What are you going to do? You know how this place works."

Zapper just sighed. He and Alan looked at each other, worried. It sounded like they were dealing with a very crooked individual. If Alan had his way, Rigden would be in the cells with the criminals he claimed to despise.

"Did forensics come up with anything yet?" Zapper asked, after taking a moment to compose himself.

"Apparently," Brandon said, "Carl's got a theory. He thinks the Reaper might be using nanomachines to do it. It's the hottest lead we've got. He's back in the morgue at the Medicog if you wanna ask." He sighed. "I'm surprised he's still soldiering on. This case has rattled him pretty hard. His wife's talking about taking him to Wyoming, see if a vacation can help him."

"Damn..." Zapper muttered. "He's the only guy I really talk to about this."

"Well," Brandon replied, "don't be surprised if he gets dragged off with no goodbyes or nothing."

Zapper nodded, and motioned for Alan to follow. They trudged along the metal walkways, as the shouts of the incarcerated echoed off the walls and filled the place with a cacophony of noise. They eventually trudged through a door marked 'Evidence', and found themselves in a small wire-mesh enclosure, beyond which was a cavernous room packed with boxes and filing cabinets. A square opening could be seen in the mesh, on the other side of which was an orc officer, who looked irritated at Zapper, his mouth curling into a look of revulsion which showed more of his prominent fangs.

"Oh, for Dunkelzahn's sake..." the officer muttered irritably as they approached. "What do you want?"

"Some respect, Spankaus," Zapper calmly replied. "You know, you really shouldn't talk to me like that, least of all when I've got rookies on board."

"I shouldn't be talking to you at all, you fucking leech," Spankaus snarled. "Well, what do you want?! Some of us have to work for a living!"

"I need the evidence in the Powell case," Zapper replied, firmly.

"No!" Spankaus yelled. "That could be my job!"

Zapper sighed. He then turned to Alan, looking strangely cocky. Alan could tell instantly that the hacker had something up his sleeve. He turned back to Spankaus.

"Spanky, Spanky, Spanky..." he said, in an annoyingly superior tone. "I own you! You're just gonna have to learn to live with it, or do I go to the DA's office to tell them about a little evidence-selling incident?"

Alan couldn't help but be impressed by Zapper's sheer gall. He was glad to have such a good hacker on his team; it was good to be able to get so much dirt on people whenever they wished.

"Shit, LeRoi..." Spankaus muttered, now looking worried. "How long is this going to go on, huh?"

"For the rest of your life," Zapper answered simply. "When I'm 80 years old, I'm going to come in here to shine my shoes, and you're gonna jump to and do it, asshole. So just go and get the evidence in the Powell case and be quick about it, or I'll make you kiss my ass."

With one last snarl, Spankaus turned around and marched into the main body of the evidence room. He seemed to be taking his time about it, his shoulders slouched.

"Will you stop moving like a fucking turtle?!" Zapper yelled. Spankaus returned eventually with a box marked "Powell", full of all the personal effects that were on Catherine when she collapsed. Zapper immediately began to rummage through it, looking for the commlink. Eventually he stopped doing this and looked back at Spankaus, his expression livid.

"Where's Catherine's commlink, asshole?!" he demanded. "It's supposed to be here!"

"Rigden took it home!" Spankaus replied, waving his arms indignantly. "He's always taking evidence. The guy thinks he owns the place."

With that, Zapper irritably pushed the box back into Spankaus' arms. While the orc went to replace the box, Zapper pounded his fist on the desk. Alan could tell that this setback had upset him greatly, and thought it best not to say anything. As he stormed out of the evidence room, Alan made to follow, only to hear Spankaus calling after him.

"Hey, changeling!" he was saying. "Watch your mentor! He's gonna get your ass fried, believe you-me!"

The two shadowrunners trudged along the station's walkways. Alan didn't say anything to Zapper and trailed slightly behind. He had the feeling Zapper really wasn't in the mood for a chat as they worked their way across the station, eventually stopping at a door marked 'Det. Vincent Rigden'. After all that Alan had heard about the detective, he was very curious to meet him.

Without even so much as knocking, Zapper marched straight ahead, the door sliding open to let them both through. They stepped through into Rigden's office, which looked strangely cold to Alan. A couch was resting against one wall, but there were no potted plants or anything like that. A few chairs stood around a large desk, which was currently littered with paperwork and a box of cigars. A large window was behind the desk, looking out over the dusty landscape that lay beyond the city walls. This part of the world still bore the scars of the Awakening, which was probably why so many shadowrunners drifted to Seattle. Strangely, the detective himself wasn't present. Zapper took the opportunity to search the desk, particularly fascinated by the cigar box.

"Fuckin' A," he said, turning back to Alan with a grin on his face. "The man's got taste, I'll give him that." Alan was sure he saw Zapper pocket one of the cigars for himself. Rolling his eyes, he walked over to the desk, picking up an open file and reading it.

"What is it?" Zapper asked.

"It's a crime scene report," Alan replied after a moment's pause. "Something to do with another murder case. It mentions a 'Hamilton Watford'. Think it has anything to do with the Reaper?"

"Why else would he look at such a file?" Zapper asked. "Actually, I recall the Herald running a story on a guy named Watford once, not long before the Reaper killings started. I'll tell you about that when we're done here." With that, Zapper snatched the file out of Alan's hands, placing it flat on the desk. Alan could see a wide scanner laser projecting from Zapper's commlink, and he then started running his arm up and down the length of the file, like a living photocopier. After a few seconds a tinny voice came from the commlink, saying "Object scanned to database".

"Great, isn't it?" Zapper said, smugly. "Sparks came up with it. You know how some files are only on hard copy so hackers can't get at them? Well, when we have to actually look at them physically, this means we can make copies of a file without having to physically move it and give away any signs of a robbery."

Alan nodded. It seemed like his team thought about every eventuality, which on a shadowrunner team was only a good thing. He picked up the other document on the table, and began to read it. This was an arrest report for a crime from some fifteen years ago; someone called 'Joey Falconetti' was arrested, but was released because there was no evidence to connect him to any crime. Apparently Rigden himself had made the arrest. Again, Zapper took the file and made a copy of it before replacing it.

All of a sudden Alan felt someone slap his shoulder. At first he thought it was Zapper, but as he turned he saw an older man with silvery hair stood behind him. He was wearing a black shirt and brown trousers with matching brown jacket, with smart shoes and a brown fedora hat. He looked at both Alan and Zapper with a steely gaze that could curdle custard.

"Dragging rookies into your sordid affairs, LeRoi?" the man asked, his voice being the same gravelly one Alan had heard earlier on Zapper's audio files. "Looking for something?"

"No, Rigden," Zapper quickly replied. "I just need to ask a few questions."

"If I find out you're going through my stuff," Rigden said fiercely, "I'll be glad to give you and your friend 72 hours in the tombs for tampering with an investigation."

"Sling your shit at someone else, Rigden," Zapper retorted, standing firm. "It's not our fault you can't catch this guy." At this, Rigden only chuckled in reply, a nasty cold chuckle. Alan was already beginning to dislike the guy and could see him causing more problems than he solved. A moment of silence followed, so Alan snatched the opportunity to ask about the open case-file. He was very curious to find out if there were any connections to the Reaper case and this old one.

"Who's Watford?" he asked. Rigden looked at Alan surprised, as if he hadn't expected such a direct question from someone he didn't know. He promptly turned to Zapper with a nasty look.

"Training your lap-dog to sniff through my stuff, LeRoi?!" he snarled. "Did you think I was kidding about arresting you?!" Zapper looked to Alan, looking very annoyed.

"I'm the one you should be talking to, Detective," Alan replied. "I asked you the question. It's not like you made any effort to hide your stuff."

"It's not news to me anyway," Zapper chimed in. "The Herald ran the story a while back. He was a cyber-architect, designer of Matrix spaces for different companies and also did a few private commissions on the side. I interviewed him before his death a couple of days ago." Rigden just nodded in reply.

"What interests me," Alan quickly added, "is that you have this file lying on your desk at all. Does it have something to do with the Reaper?"

Rigden snarled. "You're lucky I'm in a good mood today, changeling," he said, "because you and your master came this close to finding out what it's like to be a metahuman shishkabob rotating in one of our fine penal institutions. You're way off on that though." When he finished, he lit a cigar, the smoke almost choking Alan as he puffed away. He had been allergic to smoke from cigars and cigarettes for as long as he could remember, and he had to step back slightly to avoid throwing up. Seeing that Alan was occupied, Zapper, who wasn't bothered by the stench of cigars, pressed on with the interview.

"What's with this place you sent Catherine to?" he asked.

"Well, according to all the hype, it's the best of its kind for flatliners," Rigden answered. "It's got a doctor named Burton who practically invented the field of cyber-surgery. She's a real ball-breaker though."

"So what have you got on the Powell case, anyway?" Zapper asked.

"Look," Rigden answered indignantly, "just because you two play tiddlywinks in your birthday suits doesn't mean I'm gonna give you police files. For all I know, you're a suspect! I mean, you were the only one there."

"Just answer the question," Zapper retorted, his tone clearly annoyed. "Any new developments?"

"Yeah," Rigden sarcastically replied, "the pile of bodies is getting bigger. I got crazies coming outta the woodwork to confess. This Reaper's been spotted more times than Dunkelzahn's ghost. The mayor wants to revoke my jurisdiction, and if I don't break this soon every cop and shadowrunner in Seattle will wanna get a piece of my bounty."

"And you accuse _me_ of getting rich off the Reaper..." Zapper muttered. By this point, Alan had sufficiently recovered and strode over to the desk again. Something else had come to his mind.

"Are you aware that there's evidence missing in the Powell case?" he asked forcefully.

"What the hell are you talking about?!" Rigden replied in outrage. "There's no evidence missing!"

"Catherine's commlink, for example," Zapper retorted, furious. "Spankaus says you have it!"

"Well, then it's not missing, is it?" Rigden retorted, looking annoyingly superior. "Worry about your own business, and leave the police work to me! Now get outta here before I have you both arrested!"

For once, Alan wasn't inclined to argue, and so he and Zapper headed out of the office and departed the police station. As they reconvened at the car park and Alan straddled his motorcycle, he shook his head.

"That's the guy who's in charge of this case?" he asked.

"Yeah..." Zapper muttered, running a hand through his black spiky hair. "The Reaper's gonna be very happy indeed."

***

After the unpleasant visit to the police station, Zapper insisted on heading to the Medicog to visit Catherine. Alan decided to go with him. A part of him was very curious about the whole affair. For example, how had Catherine survived her encounter with the Reaper? Perhaps this 'Dr. Burton' could clear things up.

The receptionist had pointed out the directions to Catherine's room, though Alan suspected that she had ulterior designs on his elven comrade. As it turned out, Styzyack was also still here, still trying to piece together the Reaper's method of slicing his victims head-to-toe. They trudged through the cavernous entrance hall, which looked to Alan like it had been designed after some old cathedral. He reasoned that this was definitely a facility only available to the upper-classes, for when they rode the elevator up to the first floor they found that there were very few rooms. It also seemed some parts of the building were still under construction, for a number of areas were cordoned off.

It wasn't long before they reached Catherine's ward, which seemed to be split into two separate rooms; a preparation area and a room with a large ICU which Catherine was hooked up to, unconscious. In the room was a woman with long, rather shaggy brown hair, wearing a white lab coat and filling out notes on a clipboard, as well as a balding middle-aged man bustling about with various medical supplies. As the female looked up from her work, she eyed both Alan and Zapper warily.

"What are you doing here?" she asked them both, a trace of suspicion in her voice.

"My name's Cale LeRoi," Zapper addressed her as. "This is my colleague Mike Anderson. We're friends of Catherine's."

The doctor eyed the two of them for a moment, before muttering "Good enough". She struck Alan as being somewhat paranoid. It was then that he noticed her name tag, which read 'Dr. Tanya Burton, Neural Specialist'. He immediately suspected that Rigden might have had a point about her.

"How's Catherine?" Zapper asked. "Is she going to be alright?"

"It doesn't look good," Burton replied. "Her consciousness is deeply withdrawn."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Zapper asked, looking confused.

"It means her mental processes," the doctor replied with a sigh, "her memory, and the basest building blocks of her personality are inaccessible."

"You mean she's in there, but you can't reach her?!" Zapper stated, sounding slightly panicked.

"That's the best case scenario," the doctor replied as calmly as she did before. "We haven't yet diagnosed her psychic damage." Zapper now looked distinctly uncomfortable, and he released a deep sigh. He looked behind the doctor towards the ICU chamber with a worried expression. Alan stepped forwards towards the doctor.

"Is she going to be alright?" Alan asked.

Burton shook her head. "It doesn't look good," she replied. "She's still in triage. We're going to just have to wait and see."

"What's been done for her?" said Alan.

"Well," replied Burton, looking very irritated, "I'm not doing anything while I'm standing here talking to you two. Why don't you let me get back to work?"

"Just one more question," Alan quickly cut in. "How did the Reaper do this?"

"It's hard to tell," Burton replied. "She had some minor contusions on her head; nothing fatal, but you never know with head injuries. We won't know anything until we can get a data angel in there to do some digging." This statement seemed to snap Zapper out of his apparent reverie, for he turned away from Catherine's room to address Dr. Burton.

"You can get a data angel into the consciousness of someone with a coma?!" he said. "I didn't think that was possible!"

"I'm not sending anyone in there," Burton forcibly stated, "until I can fully map her psychic damage. Now if you don't mind..."

"I mind..." Zapper muttered.

"How did Catherine survive the attack?" Alan quickly asked, prompting Dr. Burton to give him a very hard look.

"Honestly, who knows?" she replied, rather nonchalantly. "Maybe she fought him off. More likely someone or something interrupted the Reaper before he could finish." With that, she turned and walked straight out of the word, her heels clicking onto the floor rather forcibly. Alan could tell that they had managed to wind her up the wrong way. Perhaps they shouldn't have peppered her with questions.

As Dr. Burton headed down the hallway, Zapper headed into the ICU chamber, while Alan stayed to talk to the man, who he presumed was the attending nurse.

"You both here to check on Ms. Powell?" the nurse asked politely.

"Yeah," Alan replied. "She looks pretty bad. Is there anything you can do for her?"

"She's in good hands," the nurse replied, looking back towards the door to the hallway with a rather annoyed look at his face. "Though she'll be in even better hands once Dr. Burton allows us to treat her. There's no hope for her at the rate we're going. We haven't even established completely what's wrong with her, let alone begun to treat it. We've downloaded megabytes of fragmented memories, sensations, but not much that helps us at this point."

Alan just looked utterly clueless. He had no idea what it was the Medicog did exactly. It was a brand-new facility, and a lot of its functions still hadn't been made completely public. Also, what did they mean by 'downloading' memories? Was that even possible?

"There is something that might help though," the nurse added. "There's an image on one of the monitors showing something we retrieved from Catherine's short-term memory. She saw the person who attacked her, but... it's so weird, and it's still indistinct. Catherine's going to have to help us fill it out. We need to piece together her memory of the Reaper and all the sensations she associated with him, or her."

Alan now felt like he had a headache coming on. This was a bit too much for him to take in. He knew he would have to let Zapper explain it all to him later.

"What are Dr. Burton's plans for treating her?" he asked the nurse, hoping that this guy would start talking some modicum of sense. Unfortunately, the nurse just shrugged.

"If she has something in mind," he said, "she hasn't told me about it. She's blocking everything except the most conservative treatments! We've started to assemble data on the patient's past, we're maintaining life support, that's it!" By now Alan was glad that Zapper wasn't here to listen to this. He was too busy holding Catherine's hand in the next room, looking deeply troubled. Alan didn't think it was possible for Zapper to care so much about a person.

"She doesn't know what to do?" Alan retorted. "I thought she was the best in her field?!"

"One of the best," the nurse muttered. "I don't know what it is about this case! There's something here she's not telling us!"

"Have the cops said anything?" Alan asked.

"Not to me," the nurse – who Alan saw by the name tag was called 'Gabriel' – replied. "Dr. Burton's the attending physician, although I have noticed that scary-looking detective who checked Powell in. He keeps coming back. He and Burton got into it yesterday."

"You mean they had a fight?" Alan asked, his eyebrows raised.

"That's an understatement," Gabriel replied with a low chuckle. "They were about ready to kill each other. Dunkelzahn knows what it was all about."

Now that was interesting to Alan. What was all this about? Just what was it about Catherine and this whole Reaper case that got both the detective and the doctor at each other's throats? He suspected he would have to keep an eye on those two.

"There's still one thing I don't understand," he asked. "How can you download and rebuild someone's brain, especially their memory?"

"Well, the brain's like a series of computer codes," Gabriel explained as if he was talking to a particularly impulsive toddler. "Like all computers, it's possible to hack them, which is what we do here at the Medicog. We assemble all the data we can about the patient's past; life experiences, food she likes to eat, favourite movies, information on who her friends were, stuff like that. We upload all that back into her brain, and hope that it triggers enough associative reactions to restore her memory."

"Woah..." Alan replied, still looking dumbfounded. "I'll never cease to be surprised by what technology these days throws at me." Then his expression became more sceptical. "All technology has its limits though. What are the odds of it working?"

"It's all still an experimental treatment," Gabriel replied, "but so far the success rate's been very high. I mean, we may not retrieve everything, but we sure get around 90% or so."

"What can we do to help?" Alan asked.

"If it's the Reaper you're after," the nurse replied, looking grim, "dig up everything you can about him, especially anything Catherine knew about the case. Of course -" he broke off for a second, allowing a small laugh "- none of it's going to be of any use until Dr. Burton allows us to send a data angel into her brain, but we'll worry about that later. If you'll follow me, I'll show you what we've got so far..."

He showed Alan over to a computer monitor near the entrance to the ICU. On the screen was an indistinct, blurry shape. Alan couldn't for the life of him make out what it was. All he knew was that the answer to the mystery was somewhere in that image. Was it possible to make it clear and catch the killer?

Alan also noticed that there was a holographic journal in the room. Peering around, he noticed that the nurse had wandered off to attend to business elsewhere, so Alan decided to have a peek. When he switched it on, a video of three people began to play, dated just a couple of hours ago. One of them he recognised to be Dr. Burton, while another was Gabriel.

"_Our options are pretty limited here,"_ Gabriel said. _"I'd try direct cortex stimulation. It's risky, but there's a chance of it working."_

"_It's too risky!"_ Dr. Burton replied. _"We could lose her that way!"_

"_Well we could try inserting data angels for a diagnostic,"_ the third person, a female nurse, stated. _"There's no risk in that."_

"_I disagree,"_ Burton retorted. _"We've no idea what's left of her natural defences. The trauma may have made them even harder to penetrate!"_

"_Alright, look,"_ Gabriel said, trying to sound reasonable, _"Let's run a neural mapper program so we can assemble a profile and cortical landscape. That way we know what we're dealing with."_ Alan was beginning to find that this techno-babble was driving him nuts, though he assumed it had something to do with what Gabriel said earlier about hacking brains just like hacking computers; something which he still severely doubted was possible.

"_You mean that hasn't been done yet?!"_ the other nurse replied, looking incredulous. _"Why not?!"_

"_Because I said so!"_ Burton retorted. _"I want her to stabilise before we introduce any kind of foreign code. Thanks for the consultation, but that's my decision."_ With that, Burton left in the same manner that she had left the ward just now, with that same distinct tone of finality in her footsteps. Gabriel approached his colleague.

"_How much more stable does she want the woman?!"_ he muttered. _"She's in a flippin' coma!"_

"_What's her problem?"_ the other nurse snorted. _"She won't do anything. We're supposed to just watch this patient die?!"_

"_She's in charge,"_ Gabriel sighed. _"There's not much we can do."_ At that point, the journal entry ended. Whatever was going on here Alan didn't like it one bit. It was almost as if Burton was refusing to treat Catherine, but for what purpose he couldn't begin to fathom. He wondered whether or not he should tell Zapper, but the elf looked troubled enough as he stepped out of the ICU chamber. He decided to keep the information to himself for the time being.

"Okay, I'm all done here," Zapper said, shaking himself. "Let's head down to the morgue and see if Styzyack's found anything."

With that, the two of them headed down the corridor back to the elevator, and rode it down to the morgue in the basement level. Walking inside, they found the slight-of-build, grey-haired Styzyack hunched over a body on the examination table, which took up half of the lab-space. On the far wall were three body bags, which Alan assumed to contain the Reaper's victims. Zapper approached Styzyack and tapped him on the shoulder, causing the mortician to nearly jump out of his skin.

"Jesus, LeRoi!" he half-shouted. "You nearly gave me a freakin' heart attack!"

"Sorry," Zapper said quickly. He peered at the opened body on the slab. "Is this May Stein?"

"Are you kiddin'?!" Styzyack said incredulously. "You saw the crime scene! Her organs were splattered everywhere!" He peered behind Zapper and noticed Alan. "Who's this?"

"New partner," Zapper replied. "You know, to replace Catherine. Would be my luck to get the work experience boy." He quickly looked away as Alan was staring daggers at him.

"This one was married to her reaper," Styzyack sighed. "This businessman went away for three weeks and got paranoid that his wife was cheating on him while he was gone. He flew home early and shot her to death."

"Ouch..." Zapper replied. "Makes me glad that Catherine and I aren't married. Speaking of which, did you hear about her?"

"I did," Styzyack said. "I'm really sorry to hear about what happened to her. She's in good hands, though. Burton's a good doctor, and if she gets stuck she'll probably call in her secret weapon."

"What's that?" Zapper asked.

"A man named Joey Falconetti," Styzyack replied. The name triggered something in Alan's memory; wasn't his name on one of those reports that Rigden had written up? Zapper seemed to be thinking the same thing, as he muttered the name under his breath before proceeding with his questioning.

"Any luck figuring out the Reaper's weapon yet?" he asked.

"Sorry," Styzyack sighed, "but I'm completely stumped. I did every test I could think of on the bodies and a computer cross-match to every kind of weapon imaginable. Absolutely no results! It's like a cross between a veg-a-matic and a diamond cutter!"

"Come on, something must have cut them open," Zapper shrugged.

"Nothing any tests can find," Styzyack muttered. "Check the control panels by the bodies if you don't believe me!"

"Alright then, I will," Zapper stated, and he began to walk over to the bodies.

"Wait a moment," Alan called to him. "There's something else I want to ask first." Zapper just shrugged and waited, while Styzyack looked rather terrified at the prospect of Alan speaking to him.

"Who's Joey Falconetti?" he asked.

"A Matrix expert that Dr. Burton calls in on all the tough cases," Styzyack stammered. "Also known by his old handle, Falcon Eddie. He's absolutely crazy. He likes being near the bodies, though I'm surprised she hasn't called him in yet to look at Catherine."

"What do you mean?" Alan asked.

"Of course!" Zapper exclaimed, nearly making Alan jump.

"What?!" Alan half-shouted in irritation.

"That's where I've heard that handle before!" the elf exclaimed. "He was the one who first published a paper about his theories of human-to-human decking! He was kicked out of his old college for such ideas; all the professors claimed it was unethical to hack the brain, but somebody must have been listening or this place wouldn't exist!"

"Dr. Burton usually calls him in on cases that require brain-hacking for medical purposes," Styzyack chimed in. "Memory loss, deep comas, that sort of thing. I'm surprised he's not here already. Though like I say, he gives me the creeps."

Once again Alan felt his head begin to hurt. He knew that people like Zapper got incredibly excited by this kind of techno-babble, but he felt it was driving him insane. Still, this Falconetti seemed pretty deeply connected to Dr. Burton, and if she hadn't already called him in he may be able to explain why.

"Where can we find him?" Alan asked the mortician.

"He's a hard man to find," Styzyack sighed. "Dr. Burton usually meets him in the Matrix. Apparently he's got his own space on there, and she meets him there."

Alan nodded. That was Zapper's department; it looked like some hacking was in order.

"Now can we get a look at those bodies before the day is out?!" Zapper asked, irritably. Alan just nodded and walked over to the three slabs against the far wall, while Styzyack put down his tools and joined them. Next to each slab was a control console, which the three of them looked at one at a time, starting with the middle body.

"I tapped the nerve memory of this one," Styzyack explained, "and fed it into the simulator so I could re-enact the attack." He pressed a few buttons on the control console, and immediately a holographic image projected out just above the body, displaying what looked like a set of internal organs. As they watched, there was a sudden flash of light on the display, and instantly the organs disintegrated.

"Fuck me..." Zapper muttered, looking incredibly ill. "It's like she swallowed a fucking grenade." Now looking queasy, he hobbled over to the victim on the left, with the others joining him, neither of them looking very well.

"Here's an isolation of just one of the organs from this body," Styzyack commented, once again activating the projector. This time it showed an image of a human heart. "The lines indicate the many cuts made to it, but that's not the strange thing. Just watch." As the three of them watched the display, a series of lines appeared, criss-crossing the heart in different directions. Alan immediately noticed what was strange about this.

"They all appeared simultaneously," he exclaimed. "How's that possible?!"

"It isn't!" Styzyack exclaimed. "No creature's hand can move that fast, and it was like this for every organ in the body!"

Now Alan started to feel his stomach churn. He really wasn't sure he wanted to see what had happened to the third body, but joined the others on the right-most slab anyway as Styzyack switched the projector on. This time, the projector showed a metahuman torso, and as they watched a line stretched from the right-hand shoulder down towards the left below the chest before stopping just above the groin.

"Notice the path of the cut," the mortician said. "Not one centimetre off-line, like a seam was undone! No metahuman could have done this!"

"Not even trolls?" Zapper asked.

"Not even trolls," Styzyack replied. "It's not just strength though; it's precision. He's cutting through skin, muscle, bone... It's impossible that this cut could be so neat! I'll tell you what else was weird; there were no traces of fabric in the wound, and this body's clothing was intact. There was no trace of mana residue either that our psychics could detect at any of the crime scenes, so we ruled out magical means. How was any of this possible?!"

Zapper and Alan looked at each other worried. It looked like Catherine had had a very lucky escape; this creature seemed to be beyond even the strangest things this world could throw at them. If no magic was used, what else could it possibly be? Styzyack looked like he was about to collapse.

After saying their goodbyes, Alan and Zapper left the Medicog.

"I think I need a drink after all that," Alan said. "Though that's probably not the best idea; I feel like I want to throw up."

Zapper didn't hear him. He was hunched over in a nearby alleyway, and Alan could hear horrendous retching sounds coming from it. Alan couldn't help wincing; this case seemed to have shaking Zapper up more than he thought possible of the elf.


	3. Cyber Stalker

**Cyber-Stalker**

The day had been too slow for Miki. Her boss, the dwarf known as Sparks, had kept her back at the Wild at Heart bar all day. With the advent of the Reaper killings, people seemed to think that they were safer in public places, and that included Sparks' dingy, slightly run-down bar. Mostly people came because Sparks was able to get genuine alcohol on the black market, but now more came driven out of fear for their own safety.

This didn't help Miki one bit, as Sparks had insisted that she stay at the bar and help him deal with the extra influx of customers. As a result she hadn't had a chance to slip out and meet up with Alan and Zapper about their little investigation. It wasn't that she minded Alan helping a friend, but she and Alan didn't get many opportunities to be alone together. They hadn't taken things _that_ far, but it still annoyed her that their quiet time was often interrupted either by Sparks or their shadowrunning employer, Mr. Johnson.

As she helped to pour out two shots of firewhiskey to an orc couple, she felt a slight pain in her back. After she finished serving the pair, she tried to rub her hands along her back and massage the painful area, but that didn't seem to be doing any good. Sparks, the dwarf whose copious amounts of facial hair made him look like a brown bush, looked down the bar at her after pouring out a pint of vintage beer to an overweight human who had been through four pints already.

"Hang in there, lass," he said, as sympathetically as his rough accent could manage. "Only another few 'ours 'til closin' time. I'm sure Ryuu'll be back soon enough."

Miki just nodded, though she didn't look reassured. As she turned back towards the bar, she noticed that sat right in front of her was a man with oriental features and a well-maintained suit. Recognising him, she quickly tried to turn around, but the man's eyes almost popped out of his head when he saw who it was.

"Miki?!" he muttered. "Miki Saegusa?!"

Miki turned around sheepishly. Sparks shot a warning glance at her, and began to reach below the bar for the shotgun he kept concealed down there.

"Kei?" she asked.

"Miki, it is you!" Kei Sung Ming responded, sounding quite excited. "I thought you were killed by the brain-blast killer last year!"

"I was... targeted by him," she quickly lied. "The killer was never caught, so I put myself in hiding in case he came back."

"Oh, I see," Kei just nodded, apparently accepting Miki's story. The truth was somewhat more complicated than that, though she didn't feel inclined to tell anyone that, especially not if they worked for a dragon like Lofwyr.

"How have you been?" Kei said excitedly. "I mean, aside from the whole 'going into hiding' thing..."

"I'm fine..." Miki muttered. "What are you doing in this part of town anyway? Shouldn't you be back in the company town?"

"I just fancied a change of scenery," Kei replied. "We were all mourning you for a good long while after you disappeared. You sure it's not safe to come back now? I'm sure Lofwyr would understand..."

Miki didn't reply, but instead just looked awkward. Down the bar, Sparks had his handle on the gun, ready to raise it if need be.

"Well..." Kei said awkwardly. "I'm actually leaving town for a week. You know, just to get as far away as possible from the Reaper for a bit. Why don't you come with me? You look like you could use the vacation."

Miki's eyes widened. She remembered that Kei had had a huge crush on her; she had noticed the looks he had given her in the office. Not a lustful look, like most; Kei seemed to genuinely care about her. In a way, it was too bad that she had to remain here and let this friendship go.

"Kei..." she stammered. "I'm flattered, but I'm kind of already seeing someone. I have been for the past year."

"Kinda... seeing someone?" Kei muttered, sounding disappointed. "Oh... Well, guess I just made a fool of myself."

"No, I didn't mean..." Miki began.

"Oh, don't fret about it," Kei replied, putting on a brave face. "Look, I'd better get going. I've got some packing to do anyway. It was just good to see you again, Miki; whoever your boyfriend is, he's a very lucky guy."

With that, Kei quickly left. Miki now felt awkward, having embarrassed Kei like that. She felt awful, having to explain to a friend she never thought she'd see again that he was wasting his energy. Sparks looked at her beadily.

"You realise, lass," he muttered, "that he can'nay go back to Lofwyr knowin' yer still alive, right?"

"I know..." Miki muttered, sheepishly. "I'll sort that out when the time comes."

As Miki stood there lost in thought, Alan and Zapper entered the bar. Zapper looked a lot better for the walk from the Medicog, and even managed to smile a little as Alan slid into a seat right in front of Miki.

"What's bothering you, love?" Alan asked.

"Oh, nothing," Miki quickly said, snapping herself out of her daydream. "The usual?"

"You read my mind, sweetheart," Alan grinned as Miki pulled out a bottle from behind the counter and handed it to Alan. As he took a sip of the brew, he turned to Zapper.

"You feeling up to doing a bit of Matrix surfing?" he asked.

"Well, I'm not feeling as queasy as I did before," Zapper said. "What do you need?"

"I want you to find out what book it was that May Stein had the code for," Alan replied. "Let's at least get one question answered before the end of the day."

"No problem," Zapper replied. "I'll see if Catherine left anything for me in her Matrix-space. I know her password, and she might have left copies of her notes in there." He stood up, and walked behind the bar to the door leading to the office. "The library requires full-immersion. I'll use the VR rig in the office."

"Jus' be careful, pointy-ears," Sparks grumbled. "I don' wanna go on there and find me space loaded with elf porn again!"

Zapper just shrugged and left through the door. Miki turned back to Alan and eyed him beadily.

"You've got to tell him sooner or later, you know," she muttered, disapprovingly.

"What about?" Alan asked, taken aback.

"About how Catherine's doctor won't treat her," she answered, furiously. The thought had slipped into her head quite by accident. "He has a right to know; you can't just leave him in the dark!"

"Alright, alright!" Alan answered, knowing better than to argue with her. "I'll talk to him about it tomorrow; it's getting late now." With that, he began to talk to Miki and Sparks about the case so far. When he mentioned Joey Falconetti and brain-hacking, Sparks began to scratch his chin and look thoughtful.

"Aye, I've heard that name before," he said. "I don' like the idea of it, meself, and if a scumbag like him's involved, it can'nay be good for anyone. I think I oughta look into this whole brain-hacking thing."

"Can you?" Alan asked. "It'd be a weight off our minds, at least."

Presently, Zapper reappeared in the bar, looking triumphant.

"Any luck?" Alan asked instantly.

"Some," Zapper answered. "I found out what book May Stein had a code for. It's one called 'A Study of Kailu-ology', written by both a Dr. Yuji Shinoda and our own President Kiryuu Knight."

"What?!" Alan asked, dumbfounded. He tried to make it sound like he couldn't believe Stein would be looking for such a thing, but he remembered the book vividly. He'd made contributions to it, and remembered when it was first published. He and Miki looked at each other.

"It's a book about the giant monsters that appeared in the late 20th and early 21st centuries," Zapper continued. "May Stein must have used this, but I guess this line of enquiry was a dead-end after all."

"Right..." Alan muttered. "Anything from Catherine's space?"

"I was right," Zapper replied. "Catherine did leave a copy of her notes on the Reaper case in there. What I didn't expect was to find an ice that looked like our friend Vincent Rigden in there. It seemed to think her Matrix space had become a crime scene. Needless to say, I kicked it's ass and got the data. There's one problem though..."

"Oh no..." Alan muttered. There was always some stumbling block along the way.

"It's encrypted," Zapper continued. "I think I know what cipher she used though, so I've got a decryption program running on my commlink. I don't think we'll get all the answers until we get her commlink back though. Besides..." He gave a dark look to the others. "I don't like the idea of leaving her commlink in Rigden's hands. The fact that he left a personal ice in Catherine's space bothers me; it's like he's trying to throw off everyone, even his own co-workers."

An 'ice' was how most people referred to ICs, or 'intrusion countermeasures'; programs within a computer network designed to protect the system from unauthorised access. They could take on many forms, and Alan didn't doubt that Zapper would find more inside the Matrix. He only hoped they didn't stop them from finding out who this maniac was.

"Listen," Alan said to everyone. "I think we should call it a night there. Tomorrow I want to get over to wherever that Watford guy lives. I can't help but feel that his death has something to do with the Reaper case; why else would Rigden be looking at a file about Hamilton's death?"

Zapper nodded, and with that Alan stood up and left the bar, walking back to his apartment. As he walked, he couldn't help looking down each dark alleyway he passed, expecting to see a glowing red light emanating from one of them.

***

"You could've told me this yesterday! What the hell's wrong with you?!"

Alan had just told Zapper about Dr. Burton's apparent refusal to treat Catherine in any way while the pair were driving to the Watford residence, and now he was regretting it. He did not doubt that Zapper's patience was being tried enough as it was waiting for news of Catherine's health, but this latest information seemed to have sent him over the edge.

"I swear..." Zapper muttered, fuming. "When I find her Matrix code, I'll show her!"

"Yeah, like that's going to help Catherine right now," Alan replied sarcastically. "You really want to risk getting not only yourself, but Catherine in jeopardy too? Pull yourself together, man, and let's just get on with finding this psycho."

Zapper just snarled, shaking his head, looking furious. Alan was afraid that he would do something stupid and seriously compromise their position. If he did and Rigden caught them, there was no telling what would happen, and how many more would die because of the Reaper.

He had decided to look further into the Watford murder, to see if there was anything that could be salvaged from that. He couldn't help but think that it was connected to the Reaper case somehow; if Rigden had made that connection, there had to be something there worth looking into.

According to Zapper's sources, Hamilton Watford and his twin brother Covington both shared a cottage just outside town. Upon pulling up to the house in their armoured truck, Alan noticed that the house looked positively pristine. It seemed the Watfords had enough money to hire good maintenance staff; he had no idea that cyber-architects could earn so much, making him wonder just how many sources their income came from. Hamilton seemed to have coaxed a lot out of the megacorporations for his services. Money would be a good motive for murder...

Approaching the front door, Alan knocked, only to find that the door wasn't locked. The inside of the house was poorly-lit, and immediately Alan feared the worst. Carefully, he stepped inside, his unique eyes giving him better vision in low-light environments. The inside of the house was certainly well-furnished, with antique clocks lining the walls and assorted other replica artefacts of Victorian design. Carefully stepping into the living room, he saw various computer servers, an antique chessboard... and a small, balding man with round glasses, a smart waistcoat and tie, a thinning white beard and a nervous expression.

"Who goes there?!" the old man called, his voice full of fear and sounding barely able to get the words across. He was holding a garden shovel, trembling from head to foot.

"Murderer!" he suddenly called. "Murderer!"

"Of the English language, maybe," Alan replied.

"Relax, sir," Zapper said, entering the room behind Alan. "We're just journalists."

"You'd better watch yourselves," the old man responded. "I have weapons here that can render you helpless!"

"Just relax, old-timer," Zapper repeated. "We're not here to hurt anybody. All we want is some information."

"You stand in my domain," the old man said, still eyeing both the elf and the mutant suspiciously. "Who are you anyway?" Alan couldn't help but wonder if the man was merely senile, rather than being frightened.

"I'm Cale LeRoi," Zapper replied promptly, "and this is my partner Mike Anderson. We're here with the Seattle Herald."

"LeRoi..." the old man muttered, holding a hand to his head. "LeRoi... I know that name..." Suddenly his eyes widened and he pointed at Zapper. "You're the one who speaks for the Reaper!"

"No," Zapper replied, shaking his head indignantly. "I don't speak for the Reaper. He just sends me letters and we print them in the news. I don't believe we've met, though... I only met Mr. Hamilton Watford."

"Oh..." the old man muttered, now looking on the verge of tears. "My poor twin brother... He'd just finished what he called the most fascinating project in his life, and then I found him! Shot dead right here in this room! I thought he'd just fallen asleep..."

Poor Covington Watford looked like he was about to break down into tears. Considering he had looked so tense before, he now looked very weak, almost pathetic in Alan's eyes. Still, he helped Mr. Watford into a chair and went to fetch him a drink while Zapper continued his questioning.

"What did the police tell you?" he asked. He was quite shocked when Mr. Watford just snarled in disgust.

"The police..." he muttered. "Bah! I'm sure they're in on it!"

"You think the police are in on your brother's murder?" Zapper asked, looking and sounding highly amused.

"It's obvious..." Watford muttered. "The way they were rooting around in Hamilton's work, kept asking for his Matrix address. They even threatened to lock me up if I didn't tell them! Still, they got nothing out of me! They took away cartons of his disks, but they won't find anything there! Hamilton was too smart for them!"

Zapper scratched his chin for a moment. He was convinced that he was now talking to a senile old fool. He gave a reproachful look to Alan as he returned carrying a mug of coffee. He set it down on the coffee table near Mr. Watford, but the old man didn't seem to notice him.

"Was the cop a guy named Rigden?" Zapper asked. If anyone in authority could inspire this amount of suspicion, it had to be him.

"Yes..." Mr. Watford replied, giving a low, bitter laugh. "I should have vaporised him! He'll get nothing out of me!" At this Alan snorted, barely restraining his own laughter.

"I'm sure he won't," the mutant muttered under his breath, smirking.

"Tell me a bit about your brother's work," Zapper asked. "For the benefit of my partner, if nothing else." That remark wiped the smirk from Alan's face.

"He doesn't know?!" Watford remarked in disbelief. "My brother was famous! He built entire worlds within the Matrix, places from history, and locations from the future! You walk through them in cyberspace like walking through the corridors of time itself! He was a genius, like Leonardo!"

It was obvious that Covington was very proud of his brother, though Alan still had to wonder why exactly someone would want him dead. Cyberspace environments didn't seem to have much to do with what was happening right now.

"What was he working on in the end?" he asked.

"As I told your partner," the old man smirked, "'Mum's the word,' as my brother would say. All I know was that it was something involving stranger research than usual. He came out of the Matrix one night and he told me he'd spent the day in a Japanese temple. That's all I can remember."

Alan sighed. It seemed this line of enquiry wasn't getting either of them anywhere. He was beginning to regret coming here, though at least Mr. Watford had put techie terms in a manner that didn't give him a migraine.

"Who was your brother working for?" Zapper asked.

"What makes you so sure that I know?" Watford shrugged.

"We all confide in someone," the elf countered. "A brother's a good place to start."

"I don't know...." Watford stammered. "Hamilton... he..."

"You alright?" Alan asked. It looked like the old man was about to keel over.

"He's dead..." Watford muttered.

"I know..." Zapper said, trying to speak in his most reassuring tone. "It's alright. You must have some way to at least find out who he was working for, though."

"I rather thought that he was protecting me," Watford rambled. "Of course, how's the killer supposed to know he didn't tell me everything? Besides, I'm trustworthy as the day is long. It's not like I'm going to tell anyone about his secret hiding places!"

"Excuse me," Alan interrupted. "What do you mean 'hiding places'?"

"You know about the hiding places, eh?" Watford stammered. "Well then, you know more than I do! Hamilton was like Leonardo! He kept his secrets well-guarded, especially the ones in his Matrix domain. I doubt even snooping journalists could find them if I could not!" With that, he gave cackling laughter and turned away from the pair.

***

"Still think there's anything useful to get from that old fart?" Zapper asked as the pair headed back to the Wild at Heart. "What a waste of time that was."

"I'm not so sure..." Alan said, thoughtfully. "Rigden certainly doesn't seem to think so. If he was willing to bully Hamilton's brother like that, then there has to be something here worth looking into. Watford was killed for a reason, and I want to know what."

"It's not getting us any closer to catching the Reaper though, is it?" Zapper snorted. "How are we supposed to know what we're looking for?"

Alan looked thoughtful for a moment, as he pulled the truck into the concealed garage behind the bar. After he had finally turned off the engine he spoke again.

"Covington mentioned Leonardo da Vinci a number of times," he mused. "Hamilton must have been a big fan of the man's work. Maybe there's something hidden there." He turned to his companion. "Go deeper into the Matrix. See if you can make any connection between Leonardo and Hamilton. Look for anything that's beyond the obvious, out of the public's eye."

Zapper groaned, looking irritated at Alan. "Alright," he muttered, "but I don't know what good it'll do." He climbed out of the truck, looking very annoyed. If Alan was being honest with himself, he was clutching at straws, but something about Rigden's persistence seemed to reassure him that there was something in this. He only hoped he was right, or he would never hear the end of it.

About quarter of an hour later, Zapper emerged from the office, looking very annoyed. Instantly Alan knew that this wasn't a good sign.

"You were right about one thing," the elf said. "Hamilton did have a private domain, using the masked tagline 'Leonardo'. You won't believe the amount of encryptions I had to go through to find it. The old man knew how to hide something on the Matrix, I'll give him that."

"I'm guessing by the fact that you look like you want to kill me," Alan replied wearily, "that there was nothing worthwhile there?"

"It was strange, I can tell you that," Zapper replied. "It was filled with books and pictures referring to 20th century Tokyo and the monster attacks of that period. I saw a scale model of what looked like the ruins of downtown Tokyo; there was a date-stamp that Hamilton had put on it of '1984'. It looked like he was recreating the ruins of that period as a Matrix environment."

"But why?" Alan muttered. Secretly, he was shocked by the date. He remembered Godzilla's attack on Tokyo in the year 1984 vividly, as that had been the first time that he had seen the titanic destroyer, the mutated dinosaur that was the bane of Japan's existence for over fifty years.

"I haven't a clue," Zapper shrugged. "Whatever it was, I seriously doubt it has anything to do with the Reaper or any other serial killers. He was probably working for some private client who had an obsession with monsters, nothing more. Let's just forget we ever started that line of enquiry."

"So what do you suggest then," Alan asked wryly, "seeing as you seem to know what we should be doing?"

"I'll tell you what I'm going to do right now, Mr. Leader," Zapper replied, making no effort to hide his disdain. "I'm going back into the Matrix and I'm going to find Joey Falconetti."

Before Alan could say anything, Zapper was already marching back into the office. Alan followed, looking most displeased. The office was a comfortable enough space, and Sparks' terminal was on the large wooden desk, complete with a virtual reality headset for full immersion into the Matrix. Zapper grabbed the headset and was about to slip it on when Alan approached him.

"Zapper, this is crazy," he stated. "You heard what that Falconetti guy was working on, and what he is. There's no telling what he could do to you in the Matrix! We need to find him offline!"

"What makes you think we'll manage that?!" Zapper stormed. "We won't manage to do anything your way; all you've done is have us chasing long-dead monsters! I'm doing this my way from now on!"

"It's still too dangerous!" Alan half-shouted, his temper now rising. "I can't let you risk yourself against Falconetti in this way! I forbid it!" At this, Zapper let out a cold, loud laugh.

"Ryuu, this isn't a shadowrun," he said, in an annoyingly sanctimonious tone. "You have no authority to push me around this time! Right now we know nothing about this, and we won't find out anything if we don't go after the only solid lead we've had. If we suddenly find ourselves facing a dragon, then you're in command again. Until then; adios. Ciao. Sayonara. Auf wiedersehn!"

Alan could feel his fist clenching. Right now he would have liked nothing more than to punch Zapper on the spot, but he knew that would just be adding fuel to Zapper's fire. Instead he settled for speaking in a low voice, "No-one likes you when you mouth off like that."

"Yeah," the elf replied sardonically. "All my psychological tests as a kid said that I didn't work well with others." With that, he slammed the VR unit over his eyes, and Alan knew he'd never get anything out of his stubborn comrade for the rest of the day.

***

Zapper had seen the Matrix hundreds of times. Ever since he was able to use a computer, he had been entranced by this world that lay within circuitry and computer systems all over the world. In the basic area, it appeared to an observer as a plain wireframe floor, coloured in a green hue with a similarly-coloured "sky" above. Occasionally lines of complex computer code could be seen littering the area, and strange lights zipped to and fro, some of them being users shifting rapidly across the Matrix to their next node. Very few, however, had seen the same depths of the Matrix that Zapper had.

Now feeling more comfortable in his avatar form – that of a cartoony green lion that was a childhood icon of his a long time ago – he zapped across cyberspace, running as many searches as possible for Joey Falconetti and his aliases. Much of what he found was stuff that he had already seen before; the various news articles about the man and his work, information that he had gained earlier from Styzyack and Sparks. Tossing that aside, he finally came across something much more interesting.

Digging much deeper into the lines of code, he found a node with the tagline of "Falcon Eddie's Realm". Reasoning that this had to be his private Matrix space, Zapper began to hack away to try and get inside. It was a very tough system to crack, as was expected of a master hacker, but it wasn't tough enough for him...

All of a sudden he felt a sharp tug on the scruff of his neck, and the entrance to the node suddenly disappeared, zooming away from him at incredible speed as if he had been pulled backwards by a jet plane. Before he even had time to think, the Matrix around him suddenly took on a new shape; that of a circus.

It was a circus straight out of all of Zapper's nightmares. He had a crippling phobia of clowns for as long as he could remember, so to find himself strapped spread-eagled to an upright table in front of a huge big top, surrounded by the most nightmarish caricatures of clowns with horribly contorted faces was almost too much for him to bear. To match this horrifying scene, the sky was a deep blood red and the area was bathed in fire and covered in skulls. A sign over the entrance of the big top read "Circus Maximus".

Out of panic, he tried to log out, but it was as if someone had shut off his failsafe programs. As he was frozen, helpless in place, a man dressed in a Victorian-style suit, complete with top hat and cape and carrying several long sharp knives, approached him with a crazy look in his eyes. He gave a low chuckle as he approached and fingered one of the knives tenderly.

"You lookin' for Falcon Eddie?" he said. Every now and then Zapper could see the skin disappearing on the man's face and being replaced with a leering skull.

"I think you got 'im!" he shouted, suddenly throwing a knife straight at Zapper. The knife embedded itself in the platform just above Zapper's right arm. He noticed that he was no longer disguised by his avatar; Falconetti had somehow disabled it.

"What the fuck is going on here?!" the elf shouted.

"Welcome to Circus Maximus," Falconetti responded smugly, "a forty gigabyte virtual playground of my own design. Pretty impressive, huh?" Zapper was inclined to argue that it was anything but impressive, but he didn't dare argue while in this position. "It's my own game room, and right now you, my snooping friend, are my new favourite toy!"

With that, he suddenly threw another dagger, barely missing Zapper's left leg. Coupled with the freakish creatures roaming the area, Zapper wasn't sure how much more of this his mind could take. Adrenaline and cyberspace were a very bad mix.

"You're called the Answer Doll," Falconetti smirked. "The idea is that I throw a knife and you answer a question. Who" – he suddenly threw a knife and came very close to skewering Zapper's head - "the fuck" – the second knife missed his left hand – "sent you?!"

The third and final knife pierced Zapper's right leg. Though it was not real, the immersion receptors made it feel real enough, and Zapper cried out as a rush of pain shot through his body. He was now beginning to deeply regret not listening to Alan earlier. Figuring that he was dead no matter what answer he gave, he blurted out the first name he could think of; the only other person that would know about Falconetti and sound plausible.

"Styzyack!" he shouted. "At the Medicog morgue!"

"Bullshit!" Falconetti shouted. "Tanya sent you!" He threw another knife, this one digging itself into Zapper's left hand. Zapper gritted his teeth, feeling virtual blood trickling out of the wound.

"I..." he gasped. "I have a friend in trouble. She needs help."

Falconetti just snorted in reply, though he now seemed to relax and put his knives away.

"I love showin' up Tanya," he said, gleefully. "First things first though, you've gotta show me what ya got in cyberspace. I'll only work with you if I know you can handle yourself."

"What are you talking about?" Zapper muttered. Falconetti just pointed to the circus. The elf suddenly felt his bindings come undone, and the hacker tossed him a pistol.

"Ya shoot a bad guy, ya get a point!" he explained. "Shoot a good guy, you lose!" He pointed towards a scoreboard just next to the entrance. "I got the high score. Beat it and we'll talk."

Zapper just nodded, though he felt he could barely stand after what Falconetti had just done to him. He limped to the entrance to the big top and stepped inside, holding his gun ready. He was certain that he would lose; shooting things was Alan's department. He knew though that if he showed signs of weakness, there was a good chance he was not leaving Falconetti's twisted world alive. So he gritted his teeth and stepped in.

The inside of the big top concealed what looked like an old-fashioned Wild West town, complete with rickety buildings, wagons and a water trough. The only anachronistic detail was the blood-red sky. As he watched, a cardboard cut-out of a man dressed in dark brown cowboy clothing suddenly jumped out at him, a gun aimed at him. In panic, Zapper shot at the cut-out several times. Though it did not return fire, there was a loud ringing noise with each hit, like a bell.

As Zapper worked his way through the town, he began to get the hang of the game. The "good guys" turned out to be scantily-clad prostitutes. Being careful not to shoot those, Zapper found he was able to score a good number of hits on each target when they appeared. Finally, as he reached the other end of the town, a scoreboard suddenly came up with the results. Zapper had beaten Falconetti's score by a good 3,000 points.

Falconetti's chuckling could be heard from close by, and as Zapper turned around he found that he was back outside the big top, with Falconetti now looking much friendlier, which somehow managed to make him look creepier than before.

"Nice shootin' cowboy!" he remarked. "I reckon you can fly with the Falcon after all. How's about we meet in the flesh?" With that, he produced a data card from thin air that he gave to Zapper. The elf held it in his hand for a moment, where it absorbed into his body, with the data now firmly imprinted in his head.

"I want to bring someone with me," Zapper quickly said. He had got this information and had nearly got himself killed in doing it. Though he hated to hear Alan say 'I told you so', he felt he at least owed him another chance.

"Fine by me," Falconetti replied. "Any friend of yours is a friend of the Falcon. I just hope he shoots as well as you. I'll be expecting you both at that address I just gave you."

With that, Zapper quickly departed from the node before the Falcon could change his mind. Emerging back in the office, he felt his face caked with sweat. Maybe he had been in the Matrix too long, but he thought he could still feel a numbing sensation in the areas where those daggers had embedded themselves in his body.

***

"I told you so," Alan stated. Zapper had just finished explaining his story to Alan about what had happened in the Circus Maximus. The mutant now had an annoyingly smug look on his face, though in secret he couldn't help but admire Zapper's sheer gall.

"Oh, shut up," Zapper muttered. The two of them had just arrived at Falconetti's apartment building deep in the sprawl. The building was a dismal heap of brick on a dark street, and as the two climbed the heavily-graffiti'ed stairwell, they passed a number of chipheads. They were so high on drugs that they had idea that anybody had passed them.

Eventually they found the right room, and the door slowly slid open to admit them. The main room of the apartment was poorly-lit and not very well-furnished; only computer servers, a bookshelf and various knives kept like trophies across one wall. In the middle of the room was a small wiry man tied to the ceiling by cables, a VR headset clamped on him. He was twitching violently and struggling against the restraints. Alan's eyes boggled at this peculiar sight, though Zapper didn't seem surprised.

"Movement in the Matrix can sometimes translate into real-world movement for some users," Zapper explained. "I guess Mr. Falconetti is one of those types. Let me talk to him first."

Alan didn't feel inclined to argue, so he wandered off to have a look at the books on the shelf, while Zapper approached the struggling Joey Falconetti. He didn't look much different from his avatar, except that his brown hair was now stuck out all over the place, more-so than Zapper's own spiky hair.

"Christ!" Falconetti suddenly shouted. "I feel like a fucking corpse!" With that, he pulled the visor off his head, panting heavily, his face coated with sweat. He had clearly been in the Matrix for a long time, for he looked like he hadn't had a good meal for some time.

"Lucky for you I had to come up for air!" he added, grinning at Zapper. "I don't know what sort of cowboy set up this rig, but it couldn't cope with the data transfer just then. No wonder I lost that fucking contest." He shifted his position so that it looked like was sitting down, still suspended by the cables.

"Alright, hotshot," he said, "what do you want?" Zapper nodded. He reasoned it best to be straight with Joey; the more he knew, the more he could help Catherine. Firstly, he wanted to know just what the connection was between Falconetti and Dr. Burton, as the hacker seemed to look on her in a none-too-favourable light.

"So how did an outlaw like you hook up with a respected doctor like Tanya Burton?" he asked.

"You mean she didn't tell you?" Joey croaked. Zapper just shook his head in reply.

"Babe's got the hots for me," the weasel-featured little man said, chuckling. "Has for years." Still looking at the books, Alan very nearly made a loud gagging sound, but held himself in just in time.

"What's your take on the Reaper?" Zapper asked. This prompted a change in Joey's personality; he now seemed to become much more attentive, and his eyes widened.

"Holy shit..." he said. "I've just realised you're the one he writes to! He's the only reason I read that rag! The fucker's incredible; he gets in there, he paints the room in blood like Jackson Pollock on crack and gets out without a trace! I'm buzzed about this psycho!" His eyes shone with hero worship, and Zapper now looked distinctly uncomfortable. Alan came over after finishing his examination of the knives and looked at him.

"You sound like his number-one fan," he said, barely able to hide his disgust.

"I can't get the guy out of my head!" Joey responded. "His stealth, his tools... I've been collecting knives for thirty years, and I don't have a clue what kind of blade he's using."

"Speaking of which," Alan went on, "what's with all the knives on the wall?"

"Well," Joey responded, "for one I'd say they're sharp." He made a sudden slicing motion in Alan's direction, though the mutant remained unfazed. It would take more than a knife to do him serious injury.

"I didn't mean that," Alan replied, coldly. "Your bookshelves are lined with books about unsolved murder cases as well, all the way back to Victorian England. What's up with that?"

"Oh, I see!" Joey exclaimed, nodding. "I collect knives, there's a serial killer loose... Knives equal killer, right? See, I heard you reporter types were smart, but you're way over my head here." He gave a low chuckle, looking highly amused. Zapper gave a reproachful look to Alan before stepping forward again. He then remembered how Rigden had tried to pin a crime on Joey, and decided to find out what the connection was between them.

"There's this detective named Rigden working the case," he said. "He won't tell us much."

"You guys have seen Rigden?" Joey replied, smirking. "Christ, he's worse than fucking criminals. I know I'd like to blow his fucking brains out."

Zapper decided not to comment any further on that lest Joey get more agitated, so he quickly moved on. He knew he needed Falconetti's help to cure Catherine, since Burton didn't seem to be willing to go anywhere on the matter, so he tried appealing to his heart.

"My friend and partner was attacked by the Reaper," he explained.

"If you're goin' through all this for a woman," Joey muttered, "I assume you're doin' her. We do crazy shit for love, don't we?"

"Yeah..." Alan muttered. "I'm beginning to think so."

"Look, Eddie," Zapper quickly said, reasonably. "Why don't you help us out with Catherine?"

"Why should I risk my ass for you?" Joey asked, looking highly sceptical.

"You could piss off your old enemy," Alan chimed in. "Rigden."

Joey sighed, leaning as far back as the harness would allow. For once, however, he seemed to be giving serious thought to the idea. Clearly the idea of getting his own back on Rigden was very appealing. Alan began to wonder just what it was they were getting themselves into.

"Here's the deal," Joey finally said. "I've been in the Matrix for eighty hours. I gotta collect from two bookies, and eat a big steak. I'm dyin' for some real food and to get these cheap-ass nutrient supplements out of my system!" He tugged at some of the cables holding him to the ceiling, which Alan now noticed were actually piercing his skin. He obviously used the nutrient tubes to keep himself conscious while in the Matrix.

"It'll take me a couple of hours," Joey continued. "I'll meet you both at the ICU later, then we'll see what a genius can do about your babe."

"Great," Zapper replied. "I'll see you there."

As they left the apartment building, Alan looked at him sceptically.

"Are you sure about this guy?" he asked.

"No," Zapper replied. "Frankly though, I reckon we don't have a choice. Looks like we've got ourselves a new partner."


	4. The Suspects

**The Suspects**

With the strange characters that Alan had met so far, he was beginning to think he was in a bad mystery novel where everyone did it. It was also beginning to look like Zapper didn't know Catherine as well as he thought he did. The private sources, the research she had been up to... and this secret meeting with the Reaper, most of all, and she had never told them anything...

It was now a few hours after their first meeting with Falconetti, time which the others had used to update Miki and Sparks of the situation, of how Zapper had enlisted the hacker's help in decking into Catherine's mind. Miki was understandably curious as to how someone could look into another's mind without need for psychic abilities, while Sparks had still expressed his distrust of the whole idea. Naturally his words had made Zapper highly nervous, though he had done his best not to show signs of nerves in front of the dwarf. This was the first of this type of procedure he had ever witnessed in person, so he was understandably less than confident as they crossed Catherine's ward and went to her ICU, carrying two sets of VR rigs. Alan imagined that he felt even less confident when they walked in on Dr. Burton and Joey Falconetti in the middle of a blazing row.

"I said no, Joey!" Burton shouted.

"Oh, you know you want to, Tanya!" Joey replied, mockingly. "You know you want to!"

"I don't want you here!" Burton yelled over him. "I don't want you in this hospital!"

"You gotta let me do my thing!" Joey replied. "I can find out what happened to this babe! Besides," he continued, advancing slowly on the doctor, his voice barely more than a snake-like hiss, "you always call me in on these things. If you don't this time, it's gonna look bad."

"No kidding," Burton retorted. "You think it's an accident that Rigden brought her here?"

It was clear that Burton had said the wrong words, for Falconetti's expression suddenly changed into barely-restrained rage.

"Fuck Rigden!" he yelled. "Should've clipped his wings years ago! I know he's gonna try and pin this whole fuckin' thing on me!"

"Or me!" Burton replied, looking agitated. "Which is why we do this my way, and I say no!"

"No what?" Zapper suddenly spoke up, sounding murderous by Alan's estimation. The elf looked furiously at the doctor. Alan had never seen him so mad.

"Hey, LeRoi and friend!" Joey said, in a tone that was a rough estimation of friendliness. "Tell Dr. Burton here to let me save your friend."

There was an uncomfortable silence for several moments, as Dr. Burton shuffled awkwardly while Joey gazed at Zapper expectedly. Alan thought it best to stay out of this argument.

"What's Falconetti talking about?" Zapper asked the doctor, sounding like he was really forcing himself to keep his tone civil.

"It doesn't matter," she replied indignantly. "I'm not letting him do the procedure."

"How long have you all known each other?" Alan suddenly chimed in. He had to admit he was curious about how deep the connections were between Rigden, Burton and Falconetti, and just what sort of impact it would have on Catherine's fate.

"Look, changeling," Burton replied. "I don't know what LeRoi's been teaching you, but that's personal. It has nothing to do with Powell's case, believe me."

Zapper seemed to decide that Burton couldn't give any other information, so he rounded on Falconetti next.

"Can you really do this?" Zapper asked him. "You know, decking into her mind?"

"I wouldn't be here if I couldn't, LeRoi," Falconetti replied. "If I could get at it, there's a chance I could restore her memory."

"It's not that simple," Burton interrupted. "For one thing, you don't know for a fact how much of her essence she's retained. For another thing, you'll have psychological ice to deal with. You'd be fighting her mind! The strain could kill her!"

Zapper gazed over at Catherine's comatose body. He was looking anxious, but there didn't seem to be any indication he was going to give up on the idea.

"You knew Rigden years ago, right?" Alan quickly asked Falconetti.

The hacker nodded. "He was a very different man then," he said. "He used to be a scumbag, and now he's a scumbag with a badge."

"So why would he try to pin the murders on you?" Alan asked.

"Well, he's gotta pin it on somebody to make a buck," Falconetti shrugged. "I guess he thinks I'm an easy target." He let out a dry laugh, but Alan couldn't help but feel that there was something neither of them were telling him. Rigden seemed to have a big hold over them both somehow.

Zapper snapped himself out of his thoughts to address Falconetti. "Is your method dangerous?" he asked.

"What, are you kiddin'?" Joey snorted. "Of course it's dangerous! We're not talking about accounting databases here! Decking into an organism's a lot harder than hacking a machine. You can't be overridin' shit, you've gotta watch where you're diggin' around. With all those emotions and memories, it's potentially very damagin'." He looked slyly across at Burton, who just gave a disapproving look. "It's worth the risk though," he finished.

"How do you figure?" Zapper asked.

"I can rebuild her memory," Joey replied. "I can make that image of the Reaper so real it'll look like it's breathing. You'll be able to stare the killer right in the eye."

"Well, that'd save Catherine and anyone else the Reaper had on his list," Zapper said, addressing Burton. "What's the real reason for not allowing Falconetti to do this, Burton?!"

Burton looked at him wryly. "Do I detect a little Rigden in the reporter's line of questioning?" she said. This just prompted Zapper to look murderous, and Alan was sure that he would have to restrain his colleague before too long.

"Fine," Burton stated, throwing her arms up in surrender and then checking her commlink. "Do any damn thing you want. My shift's over, so I'm going to the gym." With that, she marched straight out of the ICU and headed off down the corridor.

"Good!" Falconetti yelled after her, looking highly amused. "You're lookin' a little flabby there, Tanya! Tighten up those buns, baby!"

Zapper didn't look sorry to see her go either. Alan only hoped that she wouldn't refuse to treat Catherine from now on because of all this.

"You ready?" Falconetti asked Zapper suddenly, taking him by surprise.

"What?" he asked. "We're going to deck Catherine's brain now?!"

"Damn straight!" Falconetti smirked. "You're gonna really get to know your girlfriend now! Here's the deal. With both of us being in there, it'll take everything I've got to maintain a link between us and to isolate a pathway into whatever's left of her consciousness. If her brain starts throwing IC's at us, you're gonna have to fight it. Think you can handle that?"

There was a pause, as Zapper turned this over in his mind. To Alan, this sounded highly risky, and he was half-afraid something was going to go wrong and make things worse for Catherine.

"I think I can," Zapper responded.

"Alright," Alan said. "I'll just stay here and hold the fort."

"Right," Falconetti nodded. "You can monitor how well Catherine's doin' on the ICU's systems. The minute she looks like she's goin' under, send a pulse through LeRoi's commlink and he'll get it. With any luck, it won't come to that."

With that, the two of them set the VR rigs to work with the ICU. It was quite incredible the speed at which the two hackers worked to set it up. Within moments, both were slipping the VR rigs over their eyes and preparing to enter Catherine's mind...

***

Once the initial log-on process was complete, Zapper could not believe his eyes. He and Falconetti, back in that strange ringmaster garb, were flying over a bizarre alien landscape, with fleshy tendrils poking out of the soft ground. A purple sky loomed overhead, blasted by constant thunderstorms. It was clear that Catherine's mind was in a state of great turmoil.

As he watched, several fleshy red blobs suddenly launched themselves out of the ground, shooting straight at the two. Thinking fast, Zapper launched his avatar's countermeasure programs, in the form of laser blasts, to blast the strange blobs apart.

"Catherine's IC's!" Falconetti yelled. "Keep 'em off me, while I get a fix on your girlfriend! There's definitely somethin' there!"

Zapper only hoped that he wasn't damaging Catherine's mind in any way through this. He was sure that Alan would alert him should anything go wrong, but who could tell when dealing with the human mind?

After several tense moments spent shooting down the IC's, the blobs suddenly became increasingly numerous, as Catherine's mind fought desperately to fight off the invaders.

"I've secured a pathway, LeRoi!" Falconetti suddenly shouted. "Lemme get a piece of the action!" He gave a high cackle as he suddenly pulled a knife out of his cloak. He dove straight into the horde of ICs and began hacking them to pieces with his knife. After several moments of this, the ICs finally stopped appearing, and Falconetti returned, triumphant. He pointed Zapper towards a large monolith, the top of which rose high into the storm clouds overhead. When they flew up and reached the top, they saw Catherine herself, lying unconscious on what looked like an organic bed, bathed in purple mist.

"Here's what you gotta do," Falconetti said, "Burton and Gabriel have been feeding them as much of her personal background as they can. You need to bring her up to speed on what she knew when she was attacked. Use the information about the Reaper that you think she may have known; that'll help her rebuild her memory. Right now she's not even moving; the more information she gets from you and Burton, the more she'll remember, the more she'll be able to tell us."

"She looks..." Zapper sighed. "She looks so real..."

"That's because everythin' you're seeing right now," Flaconetti explained, "is streaming right from her brain, unmediated by any software. That's her, as her own mind's eye conceives herself. Be prepared; when you get close to her, you're gonna change. You'll look just as real."

Indeed, as Zapper approached the unconscious Catherine, his avatar form melted away, replaced by his real self. Catherine was wrapped tenderly in a white dress, her blonde hair seeming to shine as brightly as the sun itself. If he was being honest with himself, Zapper had never seen her more beautiful than she looked now. Away from the ICU, it looked like she was merely asleep rather than in any pain.

After admiring her for a moment, Zapper decided to log out of Catherine's mind and let Alan know that they had been successful. So he mentally withdrew himself and logged out. Back in the real world, he pulled off his VR rig, panting after such a strenuous mental workout.

"Any luck?" Alan asked him, looking concerned. Zapper was so breathless that he could only nod in reply. Beside him, Falconetti was pulling off his own rig, looking very pleased with himself.

"Not bad for a first-timer," he said, sneering. "Was it good for you too?"

Zapper grinned. "You kicked ass in there," he said.

"No shit, Sherlock," Falconetti replied. "Now if you'll excuse me, I've got about a month of dirty mags to catch up on." With that, he walked straight out of the ICU chamber, placing the rig on a table.

"Let's see if this has done any good..." Alan muttered, walking out of the ICU chamber and back into the ward. He crossed to the computer monitor where the fuzzy image of the Reaper had been shown. The image had definitely changed. Now the resolution had improved slightly, and he thought he could now see the shape of a head beginning to emerge. It was clearly still too early to tell, but Falconetti's little procedure seemed to have done some good.

"Just wait, Mr. Reaper," Zapper muttered behind him, "we'll get you yet! Let's head down to the morgue and tell Styzyack the good news."

When the two got to the morgue, however, it wasn't Styzyack waiting for them. Instead it was a much younger man, with curly hair, who now looked very panicky.

"Hey!" he shouted. "What are you two doing here?! This place is supposed to be off-limits to unauthorised personnel!"

"I'm Cale LeRoi, and this is Mike Anderson," Zapper stated so promptly it was like he had rehearsed it. "We're from the Seattle Herald. Who are you?"

"I'm..." the pathologist muttered nervously, actually glancing down to look at his ID badge. "I'm Bob Eccles, the new pathologist, and I'm... I'm... I'm not to speak with either of you, Mr. LeRoi."

"What are you talking about?" Zapper asked, annoyed. "Where's Styzyack?"

"His.... his wife..." Eccles stammered. "He's on a leave of absence. His wife dragged him off to Wyoming this morning. He'd been... well, this case had put him on-edge, and his wife decided that he needed the vacation. Now can you please both leave before I'm seen talking with you two?!"

Zapper threw his arms up in surrender, and motioned for Alan to follow him out of the morgue. Alan noticed that the elf now looked deflated; they seemed to be fast running out of friends on this case.

***

Though it was beginning to get late in the day, Zapper decided to stop off at the police station to see if there were any more developments. When he and Alan arrived at the front desk, Rigden walked roughly past them, scowling at them on his way out. At the front desk, Brandon was shaking his head.

"What's got him riled?" Zapper asked wryly.

"He's doing an interrogation today," the dwarf replied. "Some chiphead who he busted for possession. I take it you're here regarding any new developments?" The two reporters nodded.

"We got a few," he continued, "but nothing's getting us closer to the Reaper. Earlier today Rigden pulled two cops who had been on the Reaper case since the beginning and replaced them with new guys. That's bound to set the investigation back."

"That doesn't make any sense," Alan commented.

"That's what I say," Brandon nodded. "I know, tell me about it!"

"What's the word in the precinct about Falconetti?" Alan quickly asked. Zapper looked outraged; he was half-afraid questions like that could land Falconetti in prison and put Catherine in jeopardy again.

"Word is that outlaw's mixed up in this somehow," Brandon replied. "Rigden's pulled all of the hard copies on all of Falconetti's records and he's had passwords put on all computer files. There must be something there he's looking for."

"Or maybe something he's trying to hide," Zapper muttered.

"What do you know about the Hamilton Watford murder?" Alan asked, taking great care to ignore Zapper rolling his eyes.

"I didn't follow the case," Brandon said. "I don't know much about the guy except that he did some work for the precinct some years ago."

"What kind of work?" Alan asked.

"Rigden hired him about two or three years back," the dwarf said, "to build a virtual firing range for cadet cyberspace training."

"So Rigden already knew him?" Alan asked, looking puzzled.

"Best guess," Brandon said. "That was why he was so keen to take the case, even though he had his hands full with the Reaper."

"Very interesting, I'm sure," Zapper replied, sarcastically. With that, he spun round, sweeping his hand across the desk as he moved to grab Alan's shoulder, and led Alan back out of the front office to the walkways. He glared at Alan for a moment like he wanted to say something, but instead just snarled as he headed down another walkway. Alan stood for a moment lost in thought, then decided to explore the police station a little.

Down one of the walkways, he found himself near the interrogation chambers. Remembering what Brandon had said, he saw that one of the rooms was occupied, but the viewing room next door was empty. Slipping inside, Alan sat down on a chair, pressing a button that caused the metal plate covering the window looking into the interrogation room to slide aside. Inside was Rigden, stood firm, glaring at a man with long shaggy hair and wearing what looked like a filthy T-shirt and trousers, with slip-on shoes. Alan recognised him as one of the chipheads he had seen at Falconetti's apartment building only a few hours earlier.

"I'm not a fucking dealer, man!" the accused was muttering in an unconvincing manner. "Those were legal dosages for my own personal use! I'm holding down like four jobs at once, man! I need the fucking mental clarity, okay?!"

"We'll see how much clarity you have when I'm done with you," Rigden snarled. "Those senior citizens you sold those BTLs to had severe arterial hypertension. Five of them popped blood vessels in their heads!" He walked behind the dealer's chair, as the dealer looked completely devoid of guilt.

"Now talk, fuckhead!" Rigden shouted, and proceeded to slap the dealer on the back of the head. Alan was rather alarmed by this showing of police brutality.

Unfortunately Rigden spotted him. It seemed that the glass wasn't like in the old days, where the accused couldn't see into the viewing chamber. The detective marched up to the glass, cigar in his mouth, peering through at Alan with narrowed eyes.

"What are you looking at?" he snarled. With that, he hit a switch just underneath the window which brought the cover back into place. Once that was done, Alan heard a sudden series of loud crashings and bangings coming from the interrogation room.

Pressing the button on his side again, Alan drew the cover back, and saw that the room was now a mess. The table and chairs were all over the place. The dealer was sprawled on the floor, bloodied and bruised, while Rigden was in the process of kicking the dealer in the stomach.

"Had enough?!" Rigden shouted.

"Okay, okay!" the petrified dealer suddenly yelled, throwing his arms up in surrender. "I sold those BTLs! Not my fault they had blowouts!" His expression then changed from fear to anger. "What are you making a big deal outta this for? It's not like they weren't ready for the big sleep!"

"It's touching to see you care so deeply," Rigden sassed in that growling tone. "They say that underneath the skin of every junkie runs the blood of a poet. I wouldn't know; I'm just a cop who loves his job!"

It was then that he turned to the glass again, looking irritated that Alan had opened the cover again. He marched over to the glass, shaking his hands.

"No performance now, changeling," he snarled. "I'm in rehearsal." With that, he closed the cover again. Reasoning that it was best not to risk incurring the detective's wrath for a third time, Alan walked straight out of the viewing room and headed back to the central elevator to wait for Zapper. Presently, Zapper appeared, looking very pleased with himself. He headed straight into the elevator and motioned for Alan to follow. Once they were outside the building, Alan rounded on him.

"Where did you disappear to?" Alan remarked.

"You know when we were in the front office?" Zapper stated, grinning. "Well, I swiped Rigden's key card from there. The idiot must have left it there in his temper. It got me into the secure locker in the archives... and look what I found in there."

He brought up his commlink, showing Alan a series of files that he had scanned into it. One of them caught Alan's eye.

"Is that...?" he asked, with wide eyes. Zapper nodded.

"Rigden's personnel file," Zapper exclaimed. "It's got all his awards, his disciplinaries, and most importantly his address. 1432 Mouston Street. It's a good bet Catherine's commlink is there!"

With that, there was a sudden beeping noise coming from the commlink. Looking excited, Zapper brought up further documents in the commlink.

"What now?" Alan asked, now looking annoyed. He half-expected Rigden to come walking out here and catch them poring over stolen documents.

"The decryption's complete on part of Catherine's notes!" he said. "Look!" With that, he held the commlink up so that Alan could read the entry:

"_1. Can this killer really be a modern-day Jack the Ripper? Like his namesake he eviscerates and brags about it in crazed letters to the public. Like his namesake, he holds a city in terror. The police are powerless to stop him. He strikes without warning and vanishes without a trace._

"_I suspect the Reaper is one of three people; Vincent Rigden, now the chief detective on the case (could he have given Goldstein HMHVV deliberately? Will have to investigate), Tanya Burton, the Medicog cyber-surgeon, or Joey Falconetti, a legendary deck cowboy with a criminal past. I must investigate these three and learn anything I can about them."_

"Thank you, Catherine!" Zapper exclaimed. "Now we have our list of suspects!"

Alan couldn't help smiling at his friend's sudden renewed hope. It seemed they had narrowed down their search considerably. He couldn't deny that those three exhibited some very strange behaviour, and if Catherine had suspected them it was small wonder they had taken a special interest in her case. Now all that was required was for one of them to be caught in the act.

***

The list of suspects wasn't the only thing that Catherine's journal had provided. She had written other entries too that had been decrypted:

"_2. While in Burton's office, I noticed an old college text called 'Advanced Notional Mapping'. There's an inscription inside. It's a slim chance, but it could be a lead._

"_3. Soap delivered as promised. I can learn even more about Rigden, Burton and Falconetti if I dare. I've taken measures to hide what Soap delivered. Using the book 'The Women of Whitechapel and Jack the Ripper' seems appropriate. If everything works out I'll be rich over this. At first, I didn't have two nickels to rub together. I lived in a ratty slum for half a dozen years. That will never happen to me a second time."_

It sounded to Alan like Catherine had held a great deal of ambition. It was small wonder that she had taken this case so heavily, if she was pursuing it with such vigour before.

After some hacking, Zapper had found out that 'Soap' was the Matrix alias for a hacker called Stewie Beckett, a shop owner in town. They assumed that this had been Catherine's contact on the Reaper case. Zapper had looked very annoyed at this, for it seemed Catherine was willing to go behind his back so that she could get all the exclusive leads. He was out of town at present.

The clue about the hidden data had also sprung them into action. They had stopped off at Catherine's apartment. Luckily it seemed the apartment was open again, the police being unable to find any further clues from the supposed crime scene. Looking in the book Catherine had mentioned, Zapper found a tiny data disk, which he inserted into Catherine's terminal with some trepidation. After a few moments, an equation suddenly appeared on the screen:

_46Xsquared ∕ 7INV = 5_

"Huh..." Zapper muttered, looking disappointed. "Catherine was never any good with numbers..." Then suddenly his eyes widened, as if the light of understanding was dawning in his eyes.

Still confused, Alan followed him back to the newsroom. It was a spacious area, and since it was so late everyone else had gone home. Zapper marched straight over to Catherine's desk, and started pressing buttons on the calculator on the desk. At first Alan wondered why Catherine would have such a thing, until Zapper pressed the buttons 4, 6, Xsquared, the division button, 7, INV, the equals button and 5. The calculator suddenly opened, revealing what looked like a glass eye and a cigar band concealed inside. Zapper smirked in satisfaction.

"A neat little place to store surveillance bugs, don't you think?" Zapper asked. "Catherine's giving us a trail we can follow. We can use these to spy on our suspects." With that, he grabbed the bugs and tossed one – the one shaped like a cigar band – to Alan.

"You head to the police station and shove that among Rigden's cigars," he said. "I'll head to the Medicog and find a place to hide this. We'll meet there."

"Since when did you become the leader?" Alan asked, wryly.

"Since I got us going somewhere with this investigation," Zapper replied in a snarky manner. "Let's go."

With that, while Alan headed to the police station, Zapper arrived back at the Medicog. Unusually he found the reception desk empty upon his arrival; he must have caught them between shifts. It was then that he noticed that a swipe card was lying on the desk, with Dr. Burton's name on it. Zapper picked it up, making a tutting noise.

"People are so careless," he muttered. "Ah well, saves me from having to hack anything."

With that, he headed up to the wards, this time heading to the left upon stepping out of the elevator. Just before a cordoned-off area was a door leading to Dr. Burton's office, and using the card Zapper was able to get inside easily.

The office was a comfortable-looking room, complete with a shelf filled with books and various medical models. Among the various nick-nacks, Zapper noticed an anatomy model of a human skull, which he felt was a very strange thing for a cyber-surgeon to have. Removing one of the eyes from the model, he replaced it with the eye-shaped bug, which fit like it was made to go there.

Gazing on the shelf, Zapper also noticed the book that Catherine had talked about. The copy of 'Advanced Notional Modelling' was written by a Lillian Beck at Seattle University. The inscription Catherine had mentioned turned out to be an autograph:

"_To Tanya Burton, happy travels in cyberspace! Lillian Beck."_

Curiosity getting the better of him, Zapper scanned a number of documents on Burton's desk for good measure. One of these was a memo pad, one of the notes on which read like this:

"_Keep Rigden out of the Medicog and away from Powell. What does he know? Will have to take control of the situation."_

Whatever was going on here, Burton was in it deep, just like Catherine had said. It seemed she was trying to impede Rigden's investigation. All three of them – Rigden, Burton and Falconetti – were at each other's throats. He also found himself getting curious about her school days, and then remembered that Rigden had graduated from the same university according to his personnel file. He was willing to bet good money that Falconetti had been there too.

As he headed out of the office, he contacted Alan on his commlink.

"Ryuu?" he said. "Change of plan. Don't bother coming to the Medicog. Something new has just come up. Meet me at Seattle University tomorrow. I think I'm beginning to see the connection between our suspects. I'll tell you all about it tomorrow."

Assuming that Alan hadn't got himself arrested, he knew his comrade would get the message. He decided to head for home, thankful that this day was much more successful than it had looked like being.


	5. Freaks and Geeks

**Freaks and Geeks**

The university campus was very small. Not many people in Seattle went to university; most went straight onto the streets or even into the shadows these days, learning what they needed to know elsewhere. In the main office tower was where Zapper met with Alan, who had managed to plant his bug among Rigden's cigars with no trouble.

"It's lucky the bug was marked with the same brand as those things Rigden smokes," he said, after finishing his account of the previous night. "Catherine really did her homework."

"She did indeed," Zapper remarked. "It's thanks to her that we're here now. We now know that at least two of our suspects went to school together. Maybe now we can begin to draw parallels between them and the victims."

"Shouldn't be any trouble in this place," Alan muttered. The university was very quiet at this time of morning; it seemed most of the students were still in bed. The two of them rode the elevator up to the fourth floor, where the members of the science faculty had their offices. Zapper led Alan to the office of the lecturer of neurology, Lillian Beck. Since she seemed pretty friendly with Dr. Burton, she seemed to be their best lead.

After knocking on the door, a huge, dark-skinned troll woman with a shock of white hair appeared. Zapper's eyes widened; this was clearly something he hadn't expected.

"Can I help you?" the troll asked politely, apparently taking no notice of Zapper's expression.

"Excuse me, Professor Beck," Alan chimed in. "I assume that is you, of course?"

"That's correct," Beck said, smiling slightly. "Not quite what you were expecting, correct?"

"We're reporters for the Seattle Herald," Alan said. "Do you have a few minutes?"

"That's how many I have exactly," Beck replied. "A few." She glanced over at Zapper, who still seemed to have been shocked into silence. "Does your friend need to sit down? There are seats over there." She pointed down the corridor towards a small sofa propped against the wall.

"Let me handle this one," Alan said to Zapper, grinning as he stepped through the door into Beck's room. Clearly Zapper hadn't got used to the idea that trolls and orcs could achieve anything intellectual, and he had always been unable to treat them as equals. Alan, on the other hand, had no problems interacting with them; he had conversed with infinitely stranger beings before. He followed the professor into her office.

"So what can I do for you?" she asked.

"Do you remember a student of yours named Tanya Burton?" Alan asked.

"She was the only student I ever encouraged to leave school," Beck replied, rolling her eyes. "Why do you ask?"

"You advised a student to leave school?" Alan asked, puzzled.

"Frankly we had nothing to offer her," Beck said. "It was my feeling that it could have even restricted her development, but I repeat; why did you ask?"

"She's taking care of a friend of mine," Alan replied, thinking fast. "Some of her colleagues think that her treatment is a bit unorthodox."

"I have no doubt it is," Beck chuckled, relaxing a little. "She wouldn't look at things the way most surgeons do. It's what makes her so creative and innovative."

"She seems a bit weird about it," Alan commented.

"She's quirky alright," Beck said. "I remember that about her. Some very unusual predilections indeed, but that's often a mark of genius. Unless Tanya has changed drastically in the years that I've seen her, there is no need for concern."

"Thank you," Alan said, trying to look relieved. "Do you know anything about a policeman named Vincent Rigden?" he asked. "Was he a student here?"

"Tanya used to mention him," Beck replied, looking thoughtful. "Apparently he had quite a temper. He wasn't any student of mine though, so sorry I can't be of much help there."

"No problem," Alan replied. "What about a man named Joey Falconetti? Was he one of your students also?"

"Not one of mine," Beck replied, "though I remember him well. He was an astonishing Matrix-surfer, but that obsession with brain-hacking he had bothered me. I considered to be unethical and with no useful purpose. I often regret thinking that now, since the Medicog used his ideas."

"Did he have an affiliation with Tanya Burton?" Alan quickly asked.

"By affiliation..." the professor mumbled, "I assume you mean 'did she have an affair with him'. I couldn't say. I knew her well though; she may well have found his air of danger sexually appealing, and she was certainly aggressive intellectually. I'm sure she went after him to challenge his skills, see if she could prove herself superior. Who knows? The WebRunners may even have been her idea."

"The what?" Alan asked, now genuinely puzzled.

"The WebRunners," Beck explained. "It was a gaming club of some sorts. It was cutting-edge. Tanya and Falconetti were among the founding members. In fact, when she left school, Tanya seemed to do little else. She virtually disappeared."

"Do the WebRunners still exist?" Alan asked. "Where can I find them?"

"They're like children with a secret clubhouse," Beck chuckled. "I do know that they post notices of their meetings on the bulletin board out in the hallway. I also know that they changed their name recently in honour of our former President to the KnightRunners."

At this, Alan gave a low sigh. It seemed Kiryuu's various legacies followed him everywhere these days. Still, it seemed they had a new lead, and it also seemed that was all the professor knew. Alan thanked her and walked out of the office. Zapper was poring over the message board out in the hallway, and Alan tapped him roughly on the shoulder, causing him to jump.

"Over the shock yet?" he asked wryly.

"I think so," Zapper gasped. "Find anything useful?"

"Yeah," Alan replied. "All three of them used to come here, though they took different courses. At least two of them were in this gaming club now called the KnightRunners."

"So they've been around a long time?" Zapper asked. "I've just been looking over their latest bulletin. Their meeting's at an old warehouse turned loft apartment, on Dragnet Drive. They're using quite a clever code, though not good enough to stump me."

"Okay, Zapper," Alan said. "I just hope they don't mind having a visitor or two."

***

The KnightRunners' choice of meeting place was down in the harbour district, and as Alan and Zapper entered the sound of waves splashing against the shore could be heard close by. The calls of various seabirds were also audible. Alan thought it would make a nice place for a meeting, though he suspected that wouldn't matter once the members were absorbed in their games.

Entering the cavernous, though somewhat spartan-looking apartment, the two of them saw one lone person; a teenage girl with long black hair, wearing a VR rig. She was swaying slightly, as if she was practicing tai chi while in the Matrix. His face lined with impatience, Zapper marched straight over to her and pulled the VR rig off her head. The girl staggered onto the floor, looking like she had been drugged.

"What the fuck?!" she exclaimed. Alan winced, hating to hear the young with such potty mouths.

"Where's the seventh cavalry?!" she exclaimed, before turning to look at Zapper with a murderous look.

"Are you mad?!" she shouted. "You almost gave me a stroke! I was doing the Custer sim, and I was the only remaining Indian and I had Goldilocks by the throat!" Alan couldn't help wincing again at the mention of 'Goldilocks', as that name reminded him of a very different creature.

"This won't take long, honey," Zapper said reassuringly. "I just need to ask a few questions."

"Make an appointment with my secretary," the girl replied very sarcastically. She tried to make a grab for her VR rig, but Zapper held it out of her reach.

"I'm gonna tell you what I've been going through lately, hop-along," he said, sounding highly annoyed. "I've been playing tag with a serial killer, and ruining my shine by walking through his victims' guts! My girlfriend's in a coma, and the next time the Reaper kills it could possibly be yours truly! So fuck your cartoons!" he shouted. It sounded like Zapper had wanted to get this off his chest for some time, but Alan felt he was being bang out of order taking it out on some teenager. He didn't say anything, however, as his outburst seemed to have gained some results.

"Okay..." the girl stammered, now looking scared of Zapper.

"Fine," Zapper said. "Now let's talk. A woman named Tanya Burton used to be a Runner. Do you know her?"

"Yeah, I know her," the Runner replied sullenly. "I mean, I don't _know_ her. I know who she is and who she was. She was one of the first, a proto-runner. We care about our history, man. You've got to know where you've been to know where you're going."

Alan rolled his eyes. He never expected to hear philosophy being spouted by someone who played video games, and he began to get his first inkling of the gap between the Webrunners' dreams and their powers.

"So what do you know about her?" Zapper asked again.

"I just know who she is," the girl replied. "See the pictures hanging on the walls in here? See for yourself." At this Alan took a look around the pictures on the wall while Zapper continued the interview.

"What about a guy named Falconetti?" Zapper asked. At this, the Runner chuckled.

"Everyone has heard of the Falcon!" she replied smarmily. "He's a legend on heels! Before he was a Runner, he decked with a gang called Arrow-33."

"Wow..." Zapper muttered, looking genuinely impressed. "Falconetti was a 33... Was he part of that TRW thing?"

"Story is that he masterminded it," the Runner replied. "Core overwrite. Took out the credit record of every adult on the West Coast. Cops never got him. They say he's still out there, waiting to strike again."

"I bet..." Alan muttered, overhearing the conversation as he looked at a portrait of a young man wearing a bandanna, presumably to try and give more impact to a ridiculous comb-over.

"Ever hear of Vincent Rigden?" Zapper asked.

"Sounds familiar," the Runner shrugged. "You'd have to check the Runners archive node to see if that means anything. Never actually been there, myself; it's for senior runners only. I know the address; look for 'Anachrony Station'. You're on your own with the ice, though."

"Okay," Zapper said. "Thanks." With that, he and Alan left the Runner to play with her games again and went back to the Wild at Heart. Instantly Zapper crossed into the office while Alan updated Miki and Sparks on the search.

"Sound like a bunch a' no-good bums to me," Sparks snarled, upon hearing about the KnightRunners. "I can see why someone like Falconetti would be part o' 'em, but Burton? That one's got me shocked, I'll admit."

"I think it's fascinating," Miki replied. "Especially since they named themselves after the President. I bet they must have really admired him." She gazed at Alan with a twinkle in her eye, which he somehow found as annoying as the actual idea of anyone idolising Kiryuu.

"Whatever," Alan just said, gulping down his beer. "I just hope we find out which one is the Reaper, so this can end quickly and Catherine can get better."

Miki looked nervously back towards the door, then leaned in close to Alan.

"To be honest," she said in a loud whisper. "I've never really liked Catherine. She always seemed very stuck-up, especially around non-humans, and from what you've been saying she sounds like a bit of a gold-digger. I don't know what she was thinking, going behind Zapper's back like that."

"I'm sure she had her reasons, lass," Sparks said. "Maybe she were jus' tryin' to protect him. Who knows? She can tell us when she wakes up."

A few minutes later, a sweat-covered Zapper emerged from the office, grinning from ear to pointy ear.

"Find anything?" Alan asked.

"Oh yes indeed," Zapper said. "Just look at this." With that, he brought up various documents on his commlink, holding it out so that the trio could see. They were all profiles of the original WebRunners, straight from their archive:

"_Tanya Burton. Five-year member. Gifted Matrix traveller. Strengths include graphical user development in multi-dimensional hyperplane, and first-person arcade shooters. Handle; Churchill. Most played; Hostage Gulf, Slipstream and Hip-Hop Mafia. Left WebRunners after marriage to Joey Falconetti ended in divorce fifteen years ago, and the latter was sentenced to prison. Burton/Falconetti marriage ceremony of note due to disruption by another WebRunner, Vincent Rigden, who claimed to be in love with her._

"_Josie Dorset. Three-year member. An extraordinary hacker and decker, but one known not to flaunt her Matrix talent in a pretentious fashion. Handle; Disraeli. Most played; Alien Mothers, Virtual Twister and Beach Party Cryonics. Graduate research thesis on the effects of extensive decking brought her national acclaim in the Matrix community. An enthusiastic gamer, she died under very mysterious circumstances. The Josie Dorset case is still unsolved to date. Josie Dorset left behind an ex-husband and a teenage daughter._

"_Victor Estevez. Five-year member. A highly-skilled programmer, decker and designer. Best known for his controversial past followed by his personal religious conversion. Handle: Elvis. Most played; Teen Runaway Exploitation, Headhunter, New Testament Interactive Volume One, Saint Noah and Genesis: The Ultimate God Game. Reputed to be the WebRunners' programmer extraordinaire. Expert in low-level supercomputer programming. Author of several controversial underground games that continue to draw a large cult following. Following a personal religious conversion, Estevez became a senior programmer for Xanatos Enterprises, where he is designing and writing a new line of religious interactive adventures._

"_Joey Falconetti, also known as Falcon Eddie. Eight-year member. Founding father. An angel, an ace hacker, a master of the Matrix. Handle: Biederbrook. Most played; Collateral Damage 2020, Hum-Vee, Logic Bomb and WarTops. Left Runners fifteen years ago when convicted of murder in the first degree. Conviction was overturned two years later when it was discovered that a police officer had falsified evidence leading to the conviction. The police officer suspected, but never convicted of mishandling the evidence, was Vincent Rigden, a former WebRunner._

"_Stephanie Jordan. Five-year member. Decker of modest ability. No significant strengths or specialties. Handle; Victoria. Most played; Trophy Wife and Necropolis. Most notable for the company she kept, Jordan engaged in lengthy multi-player sessions with Falcon Eddie, Rigden and Burton. Played no role in the deadly events that tore the formidable trio apart. Left the Runners due to unknown circumstances._

"_Vincent Rigden. Eight-year member. Archangel, ace hacker, a master of the Matrix whose talents were only exceeded by Falcon Eddie. Handle; Sir Duke. Most played; Designer Jeep, Hebrew Vice, Papadelphia and Pistol Party. Betrayed Runners' credo that information shall be free by joining the data fascists at the Seattle precinct of the United Police Forces. Explosive romantic triangle with members Tanya Burton and Joey Falconetti culminated with Rigden implicating Falconetti in a murder, and the three of them leaving the WebRunners._

"_Sam Mendell. Four-year member. A decker of above-average ability. Strengths included interface design and applied gaming theory. Handle; Uruk. Most played; Wolfenator, WhoreBusters and President Satan. Mendell's game Wolfenator was a national best-seller. Known for his strong game design skill, Mendell followed up his smash hit with the highly-controversial President Satan. Suddenly a target for an angry public and a hungry international media, Mendell left the WebRunners and retired from the gaming community. Years later, he opened a successful dry-cleaning business in the sprawl of Seattle._

"_May Stein. Two-year member. Known more as a plot writer than a decker. Strengths included character development, plot-tree branches and artificial personality construction. Handle; Salisbury. Most played; The Heat of Big City and Love Net 3000. Talented writer, designer and game scenario-builder. Left the WebRunners to pursue a career as a hyper-text novelist. She authored three acclaimed interactive novels before taking a position at CII Publishing as a senior editor."_

As Alan finished reading the profiles, his eyes went wider. He stared at Zapper, who still had that annoyingly smug grin on his face.

"Do the names ring a bell?" he asked, wryly. "Feel free to say it."

"That's it..." Alan muttered. "That's the connection!"

Just then, a sudden beeping came from Alan's own commlink, along with a tinny voice saying "Incoming web transmission." Now looking puzzled, Alan pulled up his commlink and opened the line. On his screen was the image of a woman with short blonde hair, looking very nervous.

"_Mr. Anderson?"_ she said. _"This is Stephanie Jordan. I was a member of the WebRunners with Tanya, Eddie and Rigden. Professor Beck emailed me telling me you were asking questions about the Reaper."_

"You know something about it?" Alan asked in a shocked tone.

"_I'm in terrible danger!"_ Stephanie exclaimed. _"Meet me at the KnightRunners' loft, and hurry! There's something in the Matrix I want to show you! If I can find it, it will change everything you know about the Reaper! Hurry!"_

With that, she signed off. Alan and Zapper looked at each other, both very excited.

***

A heavy storm picked that moment to hit Seattle, causing flooding and disruption in the bay area, cutting off the fastest route to the loft and forcing Alan and Zapper to fight a gridlocked city route. It took them over two hours to get there. By the time they arrived at the KnightRunners' loft, it was too late. The Reaper had struck again, Stephanie Jordan was dead, and Rigden had had her body removed.

All that was left when they arrived was an empty loft, with huge bloodstains coating the floor and most of the walls in a sea of crimson. It was the first time Alan had had the dubious honour of visiting one of the Reaper's crime scenes, and even he was shocked by the brutality on display. Stood in the middle of it was the teenage Runner they had seen before, now shivering from head-to-toe and covered in blood. She ran to Zapper as soon as they arrived, tears streaming down her face.

"Cops just took the body!" she stammered. "Oh God, it was terrible, man! I was all decked in, and I was doing the OK Corral, and I was shooting the hell out of the Clantons, and I felt all of this... this stuff hitting me and then... Dude, I'm not even thinking about it because I figured it was Doc Holliday blowing Frank McLaury open! But I was still alive and shooting Morgan, so I know something's wrong! So I... I paused the program, and took my rig off... and she was just there! She was just all cut up, with her eyes open and looking at me... and... Fuck!" she shouted, weeping heavily, "I didn't do this shit, man! I didn't even see anybody leaving! I'm gonna be sick, man..."

"No, no, no," Zapper soothed, holding her close. "Take it easy, cowgirl! You take it easy. Nobody's accused you of anything. It's all going to be okay, you'll see."

Nonetheless, the girl continued to sob into Zapper's chest. It was then that they were interrupted by a call on Zapper's commlink. He raised it and found Rigden staring at him.

"_Too late, LeRoi,"_ he growled. _"I never thought I'd see you miss a story."_

"Why'd you remove the body from the scene, Rigden?!" Zapper challenged.

"_You know,"_ Rigden snarled, _"I'm getting tired of answering to you! I'm in charge of this investigation!"_

"The public has a right to know what happened here!" Zapper retorted.

"_Not if I don't think so!"_ Rigden spat. _"Maybe I'll leak some information I just found. Really interesting stuff. It seems like your changeling friend was the last person Jordan contacted before she died. Powell and now Jordan... Could really make you wonder."_

With that, he signed off. Zapper backed away from the weeping Runner and kicked an old easel over.

"That son-of-a-bitch!" he shouted. "He's going to try and pin this on us, I just know it!" Alan too was looking concerned. If Zapper went down for anything, it would be partly his fault.

"I wouldn't put it past him to pull a stunt like that," Alan said firmly, "especially after what we've just found out." He looked over at the pool of blood on the floor. Only a couple of hours ago a woman had been there, one who was scared and was looking to him for help. He thought of her, and then thought of the maniac who did this, and even now could be planning to frame him and his friend for the deed.

"It means we now have a deadline," he said.

***

With Stephanie Jordan's body already moved, Zapper decided to head to the morgue immediately and find out what happened. Alan knew that they had to get answers fast, especially if there was a very real chance Rigden would do anything to get them out of the way. When they got there, however, they saw that Jordan's body wasn't with the other Reaper victims. Eccles was present, however, somehow looking even more twitchy and nervous than ever.

"Where's Stephanie Jordan's body?" Zapper demanded.

"I..." Eccles stammered. "I don't.... I don't know that name."

"She was the Reaper's latest victim," Zapper explained. "They must have brought her body here!"

"That's true," Eccles replied, "but I don't know anything about a Stephanie Jordan. I'm sure there's information pertaining to her on that computer," he continued, pointing at a powered-down terminal on the wall near the bodies, "but it hasn't worked since I arrived! Styzyack probably tampered with it before he left."

Knowing that this kind of thing was Zapper's territory, Alan stood aside and allowed Eccles to lead the elf over to the terminal. The access panel had been removed, and Zapper could see that some of the circuits had blown out.

"I called for a technician," Eccles continued, "but it's impossible to get anything done in this place. If you can get it up and running again, I'll see if I can help you." He suddenly became even more panicky than usual. "That's as far as my involvement in this goes!" he half-shouted. "I can't afford to lose this job!"

Zapper sighed, and immediately set to work on the machine. Alan knew that computers were the elf's life, and while he much preferred being in the Matrix and hacking the software he had to have learned hardware maintenance at some point. It took just over an hour, and with a lot of bad language on Zapper's part, but eventually he was able to close the access panel in triumph as the computer hummed into life.

"Nice job!" Eccles said. "Now let's see..." He pressed several buttons on the keyboard and brought up a number of different files, humming and looking more confident than Alan had seen him. After a time, however, the pathologist's face fell.

"That's strange..." he muttered. "It says that Jordan's body is in the animal storage room! That doesn't make any sense; they just store monkeys down there for use in experiments." He turned to look at the two reporters quizzically. "Why would she be there?"

"Where is this storage area?" Alan asked.

"You just go through the door in the back of the morgue," Eccles said, pointing to a second door close to the door back to the elevator, "but..." He paused, then a look of horror spread across his face.

"Oh shit!" he exclaimed, swiping the air with his fist. He breathed deeply to regain his composure, then turned to Zapper and Alan.

"Mr. LeRoi," he said as courteously as he could manage, "Mr. Anderson, please leave before you get me fired."

Following this accidental advice, Zapper and Alan immediately headed into the room next-door to the morgue. Inside the dimly-lit room they came across row upon row of cages, all of which contained very unhappy-looking monkeys. Some of them were in various states of alteration from the effects of the Awakening. Alan saw Zapper's expression turn dark; the elf had been an animal rights activist before joining Alan's team.

They crossed the room carefully, while Alan noticed that the monkeys were unusually quiet about their presence. In the back of the room they came across a sealed door, with a voice lock next to it. Alan knew how such things worked, having one on his apartment door; all you had to do was say your name, and then something like "open up". The trouble was that such locks wouldn't open for just anyone, and he was willing to bet good money on whose voice the lock was programmed for.

"Isn't there anything you can do?" Alan asked Zapper. "Can't you hack it or trick it somehow?"

"I can't hack it," Zapper replied, shaking his head. "If this is Burton's work, she'll be expecting something like that. We might be able to trick it with a recording of her voice, but don't ask me how we're going to get such a thing. I'm willing to bet she's also the one who sabotaged that bust computer; she wouldn't want anyone sniffing around in this business of hers, whatever it is."

Alan thought for a moment, scratching his chin. "Burton once mentioned that she went to the gym," he said. "Maybe you can catch her there now."

"Oh, great," Zapper said, rolling his eyes. "Am I supposed to just ask her to let us in here?"

"You're a journalist," Alan shrugged. "I'm sure you'll think of something."

***

A plan was quickly formed. Alan would stay behind and be ready to go inside the restricted chamber at a moment's notice, while Zapper would find a way to get a voice sample from Dr. Burton. Luckily Dr. Eccles didn't spot Zapper leaving the room unaccompanied.

As he headed to Silver's Gym, the only remaining gymnasium in town, Zapper found out that more of Catherine's journal had been decrypted. It seemed that Catherine had the same idea, but hadn't got round to getting an audio-visual editor to get past the lock. Stopping a moment to sign such an editor out of the library node (the recordings he made would be deleted in one month unless he renewed), he proceeded to the gym.

The gym was almost empty when Zapper arrived. It looked more like it had come from a military base than a place for the upper-crust to burn off the pounds, though attempts had been made to brighten it up with potted plants and a carpeted area. A variety of treadmills, weights and cycling machines were scattered about, and Zapper instantly recognised Dr. Burton running on one of the treadmills. According to the receptionist she ran ten miles every other day, and had done for years with no chit-chat. He crossed the room to the doctor, who remained absolutely focused on her workout even as Zapper approached her.

"Do you run, LeRoi?" she asked.

"Only for a story," Zapper chuckled. He stood close to the treadmill and leaned on one of the rails. Eventually, looking irritated, Burton switched off the treadmill and turned to face him.

"What do you want?" she asked, panting slightly.

"Just a quick interview," Zapper said, holding up his commlink and switching on the voice recorder. "So, Dr. Burton, can you-"

"Don't Dr. Burton me!" Burton snapped, looking affronted. "I've had enough of you expecting me to open up all the time! This is ridiculous! I don't have the time!"

"Come on," Zapper said. "Just one quote for attribution!"

"Everything I give to you," Burton stated with finality, "is off-the-record."

For once, Zapper didn't argue. He didn't want to sabotage this chance of questioning Burton, as she seemed to be more willing to answer questions if she wasn't being recorded. He switched off the voice recorder.

"So you used to be married to Eddie..." Zapper commented. "Somehow I can't picture you two together."

"Took you long enough, LeRoi," Burton sighed. "That was the biggest mistake of my life."

"How long did it take to figure that out?" Zapper asked.

"About five minutes," Burton replied. "Six months with the lawyers, eight years to forget."

"Alright," Zapper said, "so why are you obstructing Catherine's treatment?"

"I'm not!" Burton replied indignantly. "I know what I'm doing! Eddie may be a genius, but he's crazy! If your girlfriend dies because of him, it'll be my fault."

"So what about you and Rigden?" Zapper asked. "What's up there?"

"He brings me patients," Burton shrugged. "He throws his weight around the hospital until I throw him out. That's our relationship."

"Well," Zapper replied slyly, "I heard there was more to it than that."

"He's a man with a grudge," Burton stated.

"Against who?" Zapper chimed in.

"Who do you think?" Burton replied, with a penetrating glance. It seemed that she and Zapper were on the same wavelength about the Falconetti incident, so Zapper figured that little more needed to be said.

"I also know about Rigden breaking up your wedding," he said.

"Hard to believe, isn't it?" Burton replied coldly. "A charming guy like him?"

"Hard to believe he has a heart," Zapper quipped, "but I think it still beats for you."

Burton snorted. "When I married Joey," she said, "I learned how crazy Vincent Rigden is. He became obsessed with me and Joey. That obsession nearly ruined our lives. Now it might kill us all."

"I wonder if he went crazy before or after the WebRunners," Zapper said idly. Before Burton could interrupt, he quickly added, "Oh yeah, I know all three of you used to be WebRunners. You know, they call themselves the KnightRunners now?"

"That was fifteen years ago," Burton replied, "when I was a kid."

"So that's all it was?" Zapper asked, with traces of derision in his voice. "Kids' stuff?"

"Actually, it was exciting," Burton replied, with a look of longing. "I learned more about the Matrix there than I did in school, but basically it was all about games and I grew up."

"So you and Eddie were friends with Rigden back then," Zapper stated.

"'Friends' is pushing it," the doctor replied derisively.

"Look," Zapper retorted, "I would appreciate an honest response! I know that all three of you were members of this WebRunners thing! What are all three of you hiding?!"

"What makes you think we're hiding anything?" Burton replied calmly, causing Zapper to give a sharp laugh.

"Three people involved in a murder case," he stated, "all just _happened _to hang out together fifteen years ago?"

"Stranger things have happened," Burton replied, still unshakeable.

"Alright then," Zapper spat. "Did you hear that the Reaper's killed again?"

"That's a line I've heard often enough," Burton sighed.

"Stephanie Jordan," Zapper stated. "Maybe you know her."

The doctor's eyes went wide. "Stephanie Jordan?" she breathed. "I haven't seen her for fifteen years..." She turned away, now looking visibly shaken. "Same as the others?"

"Yeah," Zapper replied. Burton took several deep breaths. It seemed that Zapper had found a sore spot, though he couldn't decide if she was just a good actress. Burton seemed too shell-shocked to talk any further at present, so he thanked her and left the gym, grinning. He'd got what he wanted.

***

A few moments later, crouched in the dark and smelly animal storage room, Alan found an email from Zapper waiting in his commlink's inbox:

"_Play this sound file I have attached, and hold it up to the voice lock. Record everything you find in there. Good luck!"_

Hoping against hope that this would work, Alan held the commlink's microphone close to the voice lock and played the sound file attached to the email. It was Dr. Burton's voice, but Alan could tell that it had been edited and chopped up to give one simple phrase:

"_This is Dr. Burton open up."_

Much to Alan's surprised, the lock approved the message and there was a loud click as the door unlocked. Wondering what it was that the doctor had originally said, Alan stepped through the doorway and entered the room beyond.

He didn't have to be a Pulitzer prize-winner to realise that he had stumbled onto something big. The door led to an abandoned service tunnel, though it looked as if Dr. Burton had found a use for it. At the other end of the tunnel he found a door leading into a small, well-lit room, one half of which was filled with boxes. There was also a hospital bed with a filled body bag perched on it, which Alan assumed belonged to Stephanie Jordan.

A sudden beeping from his commlink alerted Alan to another email, again from Zapper:

"_Just got another message from the Reaper. I wasn't able to trace the signal, but I've sent you a copy to have a look. Maybe you'll find something that can nail him, or rather her, in there."_

Out of morbid curiosity, Alan played the file attached to the email. Again he saw the same glowing V-shaped ruby that he had seen in the other message Zapper showed him, and within seconds the unnerving metallic sound of the Reaper's voice seemed to fill the room.

"_Dear Boss,"_ it said, _"see what happens when you get too close? Someone dies. To you, she had something to say, and now she's silent. I'm holding her tongue in my fingers right now, but it has nothing to say! It's dangerous to follow me. You've looked into my eyes, and I've seen your fear. Yours truly, Reaper."_

Again, the glow from the ruby filled the screen before the message finished. Taking a moment to examine the bed, Alan found the autopsy report. It was indeed Stephanie's body, ripped limb from limb with an impossible amount of lacerations. Special care had been taken to chop her tongue clean out of her head. Again, there was no indication of what exactly had caused this.

Hoping and praying that Alan would find something in here that would end this madness, Alan crossed into the next room, which was a well-lit laboratory space. A variety of equipment lined the room, including microscopes, sound analysis equipment and a monkey in a cage with a number of wires attached to its head. More confused than ever, Alan switched on a small holographic projector that turned out to be a video log, showing Burton fiddling about with the switches and recording the monkey's (often very painful) reactions. He quickly made a copy of it to send to Zapper.

He spent a moment looking at the monkey in the cage. The animal's wide eyes peered at Alan, almost as if it was begging to be released. Alan couldn't help feeling sorry for it; he was sure that, had circumstances not benefitted him over seventy years ago, he would be caged up and poked at by scientists even now. He was distracted by a beeping from his commlink, indicating another message from Zapper:

"_From what I can tell, she was performing cyber-cognitive experiments on monkeys. You know, in an effort to get animals to talk. The question is why she's hiding this kind of thing in a subway tunnel. I hate to say it, but maybe that monkey can give you the answers."_

Alan winced, looking over at the controls Burton had used in the video log. He really wasn't sure he wanted to do this and cause that unfortunate monkey to be in any more pain, but he had a feeling it was the best witness for what was happening here. He crossed over to a control panel by the monkey's cage that looked like a mixing board, and fiddled about with the sliders before pressing a button. Instantly a zapping sound was heard, and the monkey gave a series of loud screeches. What shocked Alan was that he heard plain English mixed with the screeches, coming from a small loudspeaker:

"_Hunger! Pain! Cold! Burning!"_

Wincing, Alan knew that he couldn't give up. Giving an apologetic look at the monkey, he played about with the sliders again before activating the grotesque device again. Now the monkey spoke again.

"_She hurts! Kills others like me without touching! Matrix!"_

An appalled look spread across Alan's face. What did this all mean? Killing others without touching them? What was this about the Matrix? Just what was going on here?

Quickly, Alan sent recordings of everything that he had found to Zapper, informing him of everything he had found out, before making his way back to the Wild at Heart. Whatever Burton had done here, she had to be confronted about it.

***

Zapper received Alan's message, which prompted him to splutter indignantly. He had never heard of such appalling things being done to animals in his life; the activist in him wanted to see Burton locked up for this alone. He marched straight back into the gym and confronted Burton, who seemed to have recovered from her shock earlier and was in the process of finishing her workout. Zapper practically pushed his commlink in her face, showing her the pictures and files Alan had found.

"What's with this lab?!" he demanded.

The doctor looked surprised, but not a bit frightened.

"It's legitimate," she explained. "Just because it's hidden doesn't mean it's illegal. I'm doing some very important work in there, and I'm not talking to you, your partner, or anyone else about it!"

"Hiding Stephanie Jordan's body in a subway tunnel?" Zapper snorted. "That's legitimate?!"

"No comment," Burton said firmly.

"It would make a great front-page story," Zapper snarled.

"For the last time, LeRoi," Burton half-shouted, "no comment!"

"Secret labs," Zapper pressed on. "Mutilated animals. Remains of Reaper victims..."

"That's enough!" Burton interrupted, loud enough to draw odd looks from the other visitors in the gym.

"Talking monkeys!" Zapper yelled. "You know, I've never cited a monkey as a source!"

"LeRoi..." Burton sighed, clearly trying hard to regain her composure. "I'd like to help, but scientists don't just release research information like this."

"I'm not trying to screw you out of grant money, Doctor," Zapper retorted. "I am trying to find a murderer!" With that, he spun on his heel, snarled and marched back towards the door of the gym. Burton gazed after him, looking determined.

"Maybe I am too," she muttered quietly to herself.


	6. Shattered Union

**Shattered Union**

Zapper was in such a foul temper by the time he got back to the Wild at Heart that he almost didn't notice that more of Catherine's journal had decrypted. Looking through it, he saw that Catherine had stumbled upon Falconetti's secret Matrix node like he had. Apparently she had got one of Falconetti's old gang members drunk and had come onto him. In his stupor, she had told him the password 'Leather Apron'. She mentioned 'interesting things' in that node, but one statement in-particular caught his eye:

"_Cale almost stumbled upon these notes yesterday. How much longer can I keep my efforts secret from him?"_

If anything, this caused Zapper's mood to become even worse. Why had Catherine not told him about any of this? Did she plan on keeping any rewards to herself? He knew she would be having words with her when she woke up.

With the new lead to work on, he headed back into the Matrix, working his way back to Falconetti's private node from before. This time it seemed Falconetti wasn't there to drag him back to Circus Maximus, and using the code he was able to get in easily. He found himself in what looked like an old-fashioned study, complete with an antique desk lined with papers. He also noticed that part of the wall was destroyed, looking out over a ruined cityscape. He thought he was imagining it, but he thought he could hear miniature explosions coming from some distance away.

Examining the desk, and trying not to be distracted by the sight of a large knife on it, he found an open book with hand-written notes, all of them relating to the previous Reaper victims. Notes had been made of Estevez, Mendell and Stein, as Falconetti had commented on their appearances in the Seattle Herald. On the bottom of the page was one note:

"_Will Stephanie be next?"_

It seemed Falconetti had been looking into the Reaper case himself. Either that or this was a list of targets that he was making up as he went along. Looking around, there didn't seem to be anything else in the room worth mentioning, aside from a locked cabinet that he couldn't open. As he logged out of the Matrix, he thought he heard the sound of a trumpet-like roar coming from outside.

***

Moments later, he was back at Falconetti's safe-house. He crossed through into Falconetti's main room, where he found him tinkering with his VR goggles. He flashed a toothy grin as he recognised Zapper.

"Eddie," Zapper said, "there's something I need to ask about. I didn't know that you, Rigden and Burton were all in the WebRunners together."

"Those were the days," Falconetti sighed longingly. "Christ, we had fun. I was the guru, Rigden was the brooding bohemian, Burton was the straight-laced schoolgirl surfin' the edge. Too bad it all went down the shitter..."

"On that note," Zapper said, "I found out you and Burton were married."

Falconetti chuckled. "What can I say?" he shrugged. "It was the perfect day and Rigden fucked it up."

"How do you mean?" Zapper asked.

"My wedding day," Falconetti replied. "I knew he had the hots for Tanya so I didn't invite him. The bastard turns up anyway. You know the part where the priest says 'Speak now or forever hold your piece'? Rigden was holding his piece, and he had a lot to say."

"You mean he interrupted the ceremony," Zapper stated.

"Yeah," the hacker muttered bitterly. "After we threw him outta there, he turns up at the party afterwards like nothin' happened! Walks up to Tanya, asks her to dance. She looks at him... she looks at me..." All of a sudden he yelled out, as if a bomb had gone off.

"I say 'Get the fuck outta here!'" he screamed, before quickly regaining his composure. "Then he goes nuts. Took four guys to pull him off me; five guys to pull me off him. After that, nothin' was ever right."

Zapper sighed. A sympathetic look flashed across his face for a moment, before he quickly pulled himself together. Falconetti was still a suspect; he couldn't afford to get sentimental for a fellow hacker now.

"You know the Reaper has struck again," he said, in a deadpan tone.

"No shit!" Falconetti breathed, now looking excited. "Who'd he whack?"

"A woman," Zapper replied. "Stephanie Jordan."

"Big mess, like the others?" Falconetti asked curiously.

"Doesn't that name ring a bell?" Zapper asked, doing his best not to make his revulsion apparent.

Falconetti only shrugged. "Never heard of her," he muttered. "More importantly-"

"Well, she was a member of the WebRunners," Zapper interrupted, "back when you were hanging with them." Falconetti paused for a moment, looking at him blankly, then he suddenly nodded.

"Ah, yes!" he said. "Now I remember her! Skinny chick, kinda quiet. Not into my idea of fun."

"Sorry you're so broke up about it," Zapper spat. Looking like he had just been spat in his eye, he marched out of the apartment building.

***

At the same time, Alan was questioning Brandon at the police station again for the daily update. He hadn't been happy when Zapper insisted on him doing it, but he supposed it had to be done. Still, it might be a chance to question Rigden, especially since Zapper was in the process of questioning Falconetti before he visited Catherine.

"I tell you," the dwarf was saying, "the Stephanie Jordan murder set Rigden off. He went crazy when he got back from the murder scene! He was interrogating some chiphead about the narcotics rap; broke his nose real bad. I don't know what got into the guy. It's like he knew this Jordan woman."

"I'm pretty sure he did," Alan remarked.

"You're saying he's involved?" Brandon asked.

"Let's just put it this way," Alan replied. "Rigden is definitely mixing business and pleasure with this case." With that, he left Brandon to his devices and headed to Rigden's office, where he found the detective poring over his case files. He didn't look happy to see Alan walk in and approach him.

"Any luck identifying the murder weapon yet?" Alan asked.

"I would guess that it's a knife," Rigden stated.

"Well, that's odd," Alan said. "Styzyack said that hadn't been established. He said you don't know what the murder weapon is."

"That bastard had a lot of crazy theories," Rigden snarled. "It's not rocket science. These people were butchered; you can't slice bacon with a baseball bat."

Alan rolled his eyes. He could see that Rigden was as tactful as ever. He wondered if Rigden suspected his old WebRunners comrades, especially since Alan regarded him as a suspect himself.

"You notice anything fishy about Burton?" he asked.

"Like what?" Rigden shrugged.

"Like the fact that she's dragging her feet on treating Catherine," Alan replied.

"So you're a cyber-surgeon, huh changeling?" Rigden retorted.

"Why aren't you investigating her?" Alan demanded.

"What makes you so sure I'm not?" Rigden growled.

"Did you know she and Falconetti were married?" Alan asked. He knew the answer, but he wanted to see what kind of excuse Rigden cooked up.

"Yeah, so?" Rigden shrugged.

"So why didn't you tell us?" Alan asked.

"It's not relevant to the case," Rigden stated.

"The fuck it's not!" Alan snapped. "One of those could be the Reaper!"

"Look," Rigden retorted, "I'm not an idiot! I read Catherine's notes. As far as you pinheads are concerned, I'm a suspect!"

"Why didn't you tell me about the WebRunners?" Alan asked.

"What are you talking about?" Rigden said.

"Your past," Alan retorted. "Your involvement with the WebRunners! The fact that you're an ace decker! The fact that you've known Burton and Falconetti for years! You're all connected! I'm supposed to think there's nothing to this?!"

"If you're making an accusation," Rigden snarled, "swear on a complaint."

"Why?" Alan spat. "So you can lift some more evidence?"

"You're walking on thin ice, changeling," Rigden growled, glaring dangerously at Alan. "If it cracks, ain't nobody gonna hear you scream when you go under!"

"What about your affair with Burton?" Alan continued, refusing to let himself be bullied by Rigden.

"Do you think I have to tell you or your master anything?!" Rigden retorted. "Let's just say that what I give you are pennies from heaven."

"Oh," Alan retorted, "so you were playing God when you broke up Burton's marriage to Falconetti. The plot thickens, Rigden!"

"You just crossed a line," Rigden spat, his eyes narrowed. Alan was sure they would be shooting sparks if they could.

"Ask Falconetti what it's like to be my enemy!" the detective continued. "A pissed-off cop can screw your life up in so many ways!" Alan stood firm, his arms folded across his chest.

"Well," he pressed on, "did you know about Burton's secret lab?"

"Secret lab?!" Rigden said incredulously. "You've been reading too much of your master's own stuff!"

"She's got it hidden in an old subway tunnel," Alan replied. "She's doing lethal experiments on animals. I don't know what it all adds up to, but it can't be legal."

"I don't have time to weep about sheep!" Rigden retorted. "Call the animal-lovers hotline!"

"She has Stephanie Jordan's body there!" Alan snapped. At this, Rigden looked genuinely shocked. He paused for a moment, scratching his chin and regarding Alan with a steely gaze, before throwing his arms up in surrender.

"Alright, changeling," he said. "For once, you've got my interest. I'll look into it. Satisfied?"

"Very," Alan replied. "So when are you going to put this Reaper case to bed, Rigden? A person can wonder."

"Well, wonder away, asshole!" Rigden spat. "The wheels of justice may grind slowly, but they're moving! Get yourself caught in those wheels, changeling, you'll be in a lot of pain!"

After that thinly-veiled threat, Alan left the police station and headed to the Medicog. After all the hassle Rigden had given him, he felt good to be able to say those things to the smug detective. He suspected that he was now on the Reaper's list.

***

At the Medicog, Zapper pulled off his VR rig. Gabriel had installed one into the ICU so that Zapper could keep using the pathway Falconetti had secured to Catherine's mind. While he said the treatment was unorthodox, he was willing to take progress where he could find it.

Inside Catherine's mind, he had relayed everything that he and Alan had found out; about the WebRunners, about the deep connections between Burton, Falconetti and Rigden, and about Burton's experiments. When he had finished, he logged out, looking more relieved, and walked excitedly over to Alan when the mutant arrived in Catherine's ward.

"I think she's beginning to wake up!" he said, excitedly. "I told her everything we had learned, and she jerked awake inside her mind! I think she might be recovering!"

"Nice one, mate," Alan said. "Did she say anything?"

"Not much," Zapper said. "She said that she could see him, or her, but she couldn't remember the specifics. She mumbled something about the Reaper not actually being there. I couldn't make sense of it, but surely it's only a matter of time."

That statement suddenly recalled something in Alan's memory. "Kills without touching..." he muttered. Zapper looked at him confused.

"What is it?" he asked.

"I'm not sure," Alan said, "but something I heard in Burton's lab... Mind you, not much did make sense in there..."

All of a sudden Zapper's commlink beeped, as he received a call on it. He held the commlink up to find a message saying 'Source Unknown'.

"Oh no..." Zapper muttered. "It's him..."

As the two watched, the all-too-familiar red ruby appeared.

"_Dear Boss,"_ the Reaper's metallic voice rang, _"I'm having one of those awful days. My mood is foul, and I don't know what I'm to do! Luckily, I have a hobby to keep me busy! Yours truly, Reaper."_ With that, the message ended.

"That's weird..." Zapper said. "He usually calls after the fact, not before..."

"Let's see if we've really made any progress," Alan said, crossing to the Reaper image on the monitor. "He must be scared if he's slipping up like this."

They looked at the image on the monitor, and neither of them could believe their eyes. While the image was beginning to form into an identifiable head, it was like nothing either of them had ever seen. From what Alan could tell, the head had a single red eyeball and a metallic beak, with a metallic horn protruding from the top. From the bottom of the screen was what looked like a scythe blade.

"What the hell?" Zapper muttered. "It doesn't look like a human or any metahuman at all. Even in this world, I've never seen anything like it!"

Alan was too dumbfounded to even reply. If this thing really wasn't human, were all their theories wrong? Just what was this Reaper?

He was distracted when his commlink gave the shrill beeping associated with another call. He answered and found Sparks peering at him.

"_Oi, lads!"_ Sparks half-yelled. _"Get back to the bar on the double! I've gotta talk to yeh! It's important! I'm onto summat big!"_

"Let's talk," Alan replied.

"_Not over the Matrix, lad!"_ Sparks replied. _"Jus' get yer arses back here! I have'nay got long!"_

With that, he quickly signed off. Alan and Zapper looked at each other. Just when they thought this case was solved, it was throwing more curveballs at them.

***

The bar was still open, but not many patrons were present tonight. Alan and Zapper crossed to the bar, sitting down in front of Sparks and Miki, who seemed too distracted to work.

"What the fuck's this all about?!" Alan demanded.

"I've figured it out, lads!" Sparks exclaimed. "How the Reaper's doin' the murders!"

"He's been on the Matrix almost all day these past few days," Miki said. "It's been hard enough to remind him that he has to eat and work."

"What?!" Alan exclaimed. "The police and the coroners have been working overtime! What does he know that they don't?!"

"Well," Sparks said, excitedly, "after what yer said with the whole brain-hacking thing, I thought about how I controlled my little pet here." He waved his hand towards the small robotic dragon he had constructed from metal and bio-syntech. Alan remembered how Sparks was able to dive into the minds of machines as easily as breathing. Currently the dragon was preening itself.

"When yer said ter me it were possible ter do it with organic brains," the dwarf continued, "I tried ter get in touch with Styzyack, through the Matrix. Guess what? He wasn't on holiday at all! He's been dead fer the past day! The police and the Medicog covered it up!"

Zapper looked appalled at this. Styzyack had been a good friend, and now he found out that the authorities seemed to be covering up all attempts to figure out the Reaper's method.

"After ye'd fixed that old terminal," Sparks continued, "I hacked inter it ter find out what he'd been workin' on. After he'd ruled out all possible physical weapons, he'd found a connection between the victims!"

"What was that?" Zapper asked. "Aside from the fact they were all WebRunners?"

"Jus' listen!" Sparks said. "They were all decked in! Styzyack wrote that he'd looked at their cerebral tissue, and he'd found fragments of inorganic nerve impulse code! The way he saw it, when they were in the Matrix, somebody found a way to log inter their brains, and force what amounts ter a self-destruct code inter their essence matrices so that they exploded! If he perfects this code, the victim doesn't even need to be logged into the Matrix at the time of death! All he'd need to do is implant the code and set a timer!"

Zapper looked shocked, but Alan and Miki looked confused.

"Just slow down, mate," Alan said. "You're losing me!"

"Well..." Sparks muttered. "Let's say yer an astronaut. On Earth, yer internal pressure pushin' out is the same as the external pressure pushing in. Step out of a rocket inter space, where there's no external pressure, and yer'll literally blow apart from the inside! What the Reaper's code does is increase yer internal pressure. It's as simple as that!"

Now Alan understood, and the mental images those words conjured in his mind didn't bear thought.

"So how come just the torsos exploded?!" Alan asked.

"Styzyack figured that one out too," Sparks explained. "The guy's a fuckin' artist! He can blow somebody's guts across a room or he can cut someone open and let them spill in front of them! The sliced torso is his signature!"

With that, Sparks suddenly let out a loud cough, but quickly seemed to recover as he carried on.

"It's just like the original Jack the Ripper," he continued, "but he's one-upped his namesake! He doesn't even have ter be there!"

"Fuck..." Miki stated. "It's like the perfect crime! Killing from the Matrix!"

"That's what that monkey was talking about!" Alan exclaimed. "Killing without touching! It all fits!"

"You know what this means?!" Zapper exclaimed. "Anyone with a datajack, who uses augmented interfaces or VR at any time is a potential target! Damned if I'm going in the Matrix again! Not without some protection!"

"I've been workin' on that, lad!" Sparks chimed in. "It's why I called yer here tonight; I've got the protection code ready! Here..."

Without another word, Sparks brought up his commlink and sent an email to the commlinks of the others. In each email was an attachment.

"Yer need ter get yerselves inter the Matrix ter install it properly," Sparks explained, "but it's designed to detect and destroy any malignant viral attack that tries to attach itself to yer essence matrix. That should keep the three of yer safe from the Reaper's code! Be quick though! If this guy figures out I know anythin', we're all in trouble!"

With that, he suddenly coughed again, actually doubling over as he did so.

"Is it your ulcer playing up again?" Alan asked. "You've gotta stop drinking, it can't be good for..."

He paused, as Sparks stood bolt upright, groaning and straining. He was shaking all over, his face contorted in pain.

"Sparks?!" Miki called. "Are you alright?! Are you..."

She was silenced, then her last word became a scream of abject terror. Even Alan and Zapper yelled as Sparks was suddenly slashed as if by an invisible sword. A number of cuts appeared instantly on his torso, spilling his intestines and other organs out onto the bar in front of him. The dwarf cried out in agony as the cuts began to appear all over his body, sending blood spurting all over his allies. Zapper collapsed backwards onto the floor. The bar patrons, now seeing what was happening, screamed in terror and fled from the bar.

Horrified and helpless, Alan watched as his best friend in this time was ripped limb from limb, and collapsed onto the bar.

***

It was funny, in some sick way, how seeing his best friend get blown up focused Alan's attention. He now knew for certain that his life was in danger. Sparks' murder coming only half a day after Jordan's showed him what happened to people who knew too much. He knew he had to determine whether Burton, Falconetti or Rigden was the Reaper, and quick, and while he was at it he had to find out what Catherine had been up to. The fact that the Reaper could kill via the Matrix over time and distance meant that he had to crack the case fast, or he was a dead man. Not even Organiser G-1 could save him from getting ripped apart like Sparks and those other victims had been.

Firstly, of course, he had to keep himself and his friends out of prison. Long after these events were over, Alan would come to regard this as the worst night of his life; even worse than the Awakening. The police had arrived on the scene in double-quick time, and promptly ordered Alan, Miki and Zapper to the police station for questioning, as more than a dozen witnesses placed them with Sparks at the time of his death. Alan sat in a prison cell, sharing it with six rough-looking thugs of various races, and thought about just how he was supposed to get them out of this, considering Rigden had been looking for an excuse to pin this on Alan and Zapper for some time.

"_All we can do is be patient",_ a female voice said in his head. Alan recognised it to be Miki's, as she was locked up in the female block and this was the only way she could communicate. After Kaiser's failed assault on her mind she had somehow become psychically connected to creatures that held Godzilla's blood, to the point that for a time Miki had seen Godzilla standing wherever Alan happened to be. This connection worked both ways, though neither had seen much need to use it.

_Any idea how Zapper's doing?_ he thought.

"_No",_ came Miki's reply. "_It's so confusing here; there are too many voices. I can't risk diving too deep or the number of voices will overwhelm me. We'll have to talk later."_

Alan sighed. He tried to sleep that night, but he knew better than to try and sleep with both eyes shut in a place like this.

***

The next morning, the three of them were pulled off to separate interrogation rooms. Alan and Miki were reasonably lucky in this department; unlike Zapper, they didn't have to be in the same room as Rigden, who glowered at Zapper as he entered the small chamber. Zapper was sitting on the table, as defiant as ever to Rigden.

"Get off the table!" Rigden yelled.

"What's this all about?" Zapper countered.

"It's about catching a killer..." Rigden snarled. "Seems like he's been under my nose all along."

Zapper just snorted, rolling his eyes. "You really are crazy!" he sneered. Rigden's reply was to pull Zapper's arms behind his back and bind them together with handcuffs.

"Get these bracelets off me, Rigden!" the elf continued.

"I wanna know how you did it!" Rigden snarled. "How did you kill them?!"

"What are you high on, Rigden?!" Zapper spat.

"I wanna know how you did it!" Rigden snarled again, grabbing Zapper by the throat and pressing hard on the side of it. Zapper cried out in agony as blinding pain shot straight up his neck and into his head. He bit down hard and gritted his teeth.

"I'll have your fucking badge for this!" he shouted.

"I know all about pressure points," Rigden growled. "The pain's exquisite, and it don't leave a mark. Not that I give a damn whether I mark you up or not!" With that, he pressed again, and Zapper was sure his head was going to explode from the pain. When he finally let go, the elf collapsed onto the table, breathing hard.

"You are fucking losing it, Rigden!" he shouted. "When I run this story, everyone's gonna start thinking you're the Reaper!"

"You're the one getting mystery messages from the Reaper!" Rigden spat. "You're the one with power when Catherine's attacked! Your apprentice is the last person Stephanie Jordan contacts! You were with Jerry when he was killed! How come the Reaper only communicates with you?!" His eyes were now bulging out of his head. He looked positively mad.

"I'm a writer, you prick!" Zapper snarled.

"If you ask me," Rigden replied, "the Reaper is a sick fuck of a muckraker, who can't tell the difference between a pen and a blade."

"Didn't it sink in," Zapper retorted, "when I told you that before Jerry was killed that the killer is in the Matrix. That means that the Reaper can rip you apart and be sipping coffee in a café a thousand miles away!"

"You dirty piece of shit!" Rigden shouted, proceeding to punch Zapper hard, almost breaking his jaw. With blood coming out of a burst lip, Zapper eyed Rigden with nothing but malice on his face.

"How are you gonna explain this, Rigden?!" he snarled. As a reply, Rigden pulled a sharp knife out of the inside of his jacket, and proceeded to make two large cuts across his face. Zapper winced and looked away as Rigden did it, but the detective showed no signs of feeling any pain at all.

"Self-defence, man," Rigden replied, smugly. "I mean, why'd you hit me, LeRoi? What, are you stupid, hitting a cop?!" He proceeded to hold the knife right up to Zapper's throat. The elf could feel the point of it threatening to penetrate the skin on his neck.

"I'm gonna smear you all over the front page tomorrow," Zapper snarled, "you sick fucking bastard! Now let me and my friends outta here! You've got nothing on us, or you'd have arrested us by now!"

Rigden paused for a moment, seemingly contemplating Zapper's words. After a few moments he nodded, and put the knife away.

"You can walk, for now," he growled. "But I'm onto you! You hear me?! I'm gonna hear you confess before this is over!" He walked behind Zapper and roughly removed the handcuffs. "It's a matter of time! Now get outta here!" He swiped his fist at Zapper as he walked towards the door.

"Don't trip on your way out!" the detective called after him, walking up beside him. "Wouldn't want you to hurt yourself, would we?"

After the incident, the trio were allowed to go. However, the bar had officially been classed as a crime scene, so they could not return there for some time. They holed up at Alan's apartment, where Alan and Mike helped Zapper to recover from his ordeal. No further killings happened, but none of them dared to investigate the matter further in case they crossed paths with Rigden again.

After a few days, it became clear that Rigden didn't have enough on them to arrest them. Out of boredom, Alan decided to go see Covington Watford to check up on him. It had been a while since they last visited the old man, and he wondered how he was coping in the wake of his brother's death.

As he approached the cottage, he was alarmed to find that the front door had been broken into. Stepping through carefully, Alan kept one hand inside his coat, on the handle of his Technomantic revolver. It was dark inside the house, and furniture had been upturned.

"Hello?" Alan called. "Hello, Mr. Watford? It's me, Mike Anderson. I came with Cale LeRoi, remember?!"

Still no response. He walked carefully through the house, twisting to check every corner. As he crossed into the dining room, the lights suddenly came on, revealing Covington Watford trapped in a corner of the room, looking terrified at a cloaked figure wielding a knife.

"Help!" Watford called, upon seeing Alan. "Help!"

As quick as a flash, Alan pulled his revolver out from inside his jacket, currently loaded with ordinary bullets.

"Don't move!" Alan called to the knife-wielding figure. It seemed to ignore him as it continued to advance on poor Covington.

"I said don't move!" Alan warned again, with no response. When it looked like the figure was about to strike, he fired two rounds at the attacker, forcing it to beat a hasty retreat. There was a clunking sound as the knife fell on the floor, and Alan ran over to Covington.

"Are you alright, Mr. Watford?!" he asked. Covington just cried out in reply, clearly frightened out of his mind.

"I'm dead!" he shouted. "By God, I'm dead!"

"Not quite, sir," Alan responded, sliding his gun back into its holster.

"It's only a matter of time!" Watford cried, "I'm telling you!"

"Hold on," Alan said, walking towards where the knife had dropped. Grabbing a handkerchief from the dining room table, he stooped to pick up the knife and placed it on the table.

"I must have only hit the shoulder," Alan muttered, spotting traces of blood on the floor.

"Oh God!" Watford remarked. "Now we've got a wounded animal on our hands! That's it for me, I tell you! I'm not waiting to be killed!" He leaned in closer to Alan, reaching into his pocket.

"I know I can trust you now," he said. "Hamilton stored an A.I. of himself on this disk." He pulled a small data disk out of his pocket and showed it to Alan. "It might hold some clue about who killed him. I'll upload it into our Matrix node; your friend knows the address! You can talk to him yourself!

"As for me..." he muttered, "After I've spoken to the police and uploaded this A.I., I'm getting the hell out of this city!" He marched straight past Alan towards the phone and called the police. Alan thought it best to stay put in case Rigden tried to pin this crime on him.


	7. Skeletons in the Cyber Closet

**Skeletons in the Cyber-Closet**

Two hours later, Alan couldn't believe his misfortune of finding himself speaking to Rigden again. The police had been quick to report to the scene of the crime, and Covington Watford had just come out of questioning with a very mistrusting look on his face. It was Alan's turn now, and as he walked into Rigden's office the detective didn't look at all surprised to see him.

"Well," Rigden said, "look who's back. Your master promised I'd be in the paper; I was expecting page one, or at least the sports page. 'Cop KOs pen-head in first round'. How's his face, asshole?" As he spoke, he shifted his shoulders, causing him to wince and reach for his shoulder. Alan noticed this and thought back to what he'd just witnessed.

"What's wrong with your shoulder?" he asked. Rigden just threw him a nasty look.

"Everything's a clue to you, changeling," he muttered. "I was interrogating the suspect we just pulled in for the attempted Watford killing. We bagged him thanks to the fingerprints on the knife. I didn't go easy on him, like I did with your master." He gave a nasty sneer at this, which made Alan almost gag.

"Alright," Alan said, "so where's the missing evidence? You know, from Catherine's attack?"

"Correct me if I'm wrong," Rigden said, "but your master and I already discussed this topic."

"Well, did he mention that the commlink belongs to the paper?" Alan asked. "The paper wants it back."

"Well, the paper will just have to get off its heiney," Rigden retorted, "come down here, file a complaint, run it by a federal judge and see how long it takes to get it back."

As Alan walked out of the office, Rigden called after him.

"Don't think you saving Watford's life gets you off the hook! You're still on my list, changeling, and so is your master!"

As Alan headed along the walkways to the central elevator, Zapper and Miki approached him.

"Oh God!" Miki exclaimed, embracing Alan. "You're alright! When we heard about Covington..."

"It's okay, sweetheart," Alan soothed. "You know me; no mugger or murderer would dare mess with me."

"So did Rigden try to pin it on you?" Zapper asked bitterly.

"No," Alan replied. "Covington straightened it all out. They've already got someone for that."

"I know," Miki said. "Brandon told me that he was in one of the interrogation rooms. Do you think we should go sneak a look?"

Alan nodded. He wanted to see the face of the attacker, wondering who Rigden had decided to pin it on. They headed to the deserted viewing room of the interrogation chamber where Zapper had been just a few days ago, and looked in.

Inside there was a young man, roughly in his early 30s, with shaggy brown hair and currently wearing prison garb. He was sat bolt upright in his chair, and his eyes seemed to be glazed over. He had a blank expression on his face and was as stiff as a statue. One thing Alan also noticed was that his shoulder was bandaged, with a spot of blood clearly visible on it.

"A gunshot wound..." Alan muttered. "So Rigden wasn't kidding."

"I know..." Zapper mused, scratching his chin. "Something doesn't feel right though..."

"I know..." Miki muttered. "He looks like... well, he looks like a zombie." She held a hand up to her head for a moment. "I'm getting no thoughts from him. There's nothing in there. He's... well, I don't know how else to put this... he's brain-dead."

"Or mind-controlled..." Zapper muttered. "This might be what Sparks was talking about, with the Reaper being able to hack the brains of his victims. He must be trying to throw the police off-track. Look at his cortex implant..." He pointed to a metal port on the side of the prisoner's head. A small LED was pulsing on it, indicating that it was active.

Alan held his hand up to his temple. He was glad that he did not log on to the Matrix on a regular basis through augmentation or VR, otherwise he knew he would be a walking time-bomb, like potentially billions of others...

Zapper's commlink suddenly beeped, and a verbal message kept saying 'Warning: Source Unknown'.

"Speak of the devil..." Zapper muttered, raising the commlink so the others could see the familiar glowing ruby and the Reaper's latest message.

"_Dear Boss,"_ it said, _"how I long to see the look on your face when you realise you are 'dwarfed' by the situation."_ He gave a nasty, metallic chuckle. _"I do have a sense of humour, see; one must enjoy one's work. Warn your readers that I can strike anyone, at any time. No-one is safe. Yours truly, Reaper."_

Zapper almost punched his commlink. All three of them looked furious.

"That sick bastard!" the elf muttered, that crack about Sparks hurting him deeper than he thought possible. "I'll nail that fucking psycho if it's the last thing I do!"

***

With Rigden now high on the list of suspects, Zapper decided to head to Rigden's apartment to get Catherine's commlink back. He returned to Alan's apartment sometime later, that familiar triumphant grin on his face.

"No trouble, I take it?" Alan asked.

"Nope," Zapper replied. "Rigden wasn't about, and the apartment wasn't secure in any meaningful way. Got in and got out. I couldn't risk taking the commlink itself and alerting Rigden, but I was able to transfer the data through a local connection." He sat down at the coffee table with the others, placing his commlink on the table and bringing up a series of documents on the holographic display.

"This one here," he said, pointing at one of the documents, "is what's left of Catherine's notes from her Matrix space." Alan and Miki leaned in closer to read:

"_I'm getting close. Maybe too close. The danger is too real. I've got to end this soon. I'm getting sleepy too. I still have notes on my commlink that I need to transfer to here. It's not safe for me to be carrying that information on me."_

"That doesn't help much, does it?" Alan shrugged.

"Just take a look at this," Zapper said impatiently, pointing at the other document. "This came from Catherine's commlink."

"_Rigden, Falconetti and Burton, when they were with the WebRunners years ago, used to play a fighting role-playing game called Kaiju Karnage. They were all obsessed with the giant monsters that attacked different countries across the world in the late 20__th__ and early 21__st__ centuries, and this game allowed them to create their own monsters and stage battles of their own. I have a gut feeling that I should not dismiss this as coincidence, when I consider how violent and terrible those beasts were._

"_They played this game constantly, but then something happened. Whatever it was, it made them stop playing, and the three of them don't want to talk about it. I'm convinced that the secret to the Reaper is somewhere in this game."_

Alan and Miki looked at each other. Neither of them could believe their eyes.

"Kaiju..." Alan muttered in disbelief. "Karnage?"

"Right," Zapper nodded. "I thought it was hard to believe too, but Catherine seems convinced that it's connected to the Reaper somehow. Judging by what I saw in the Watford and Falconetti nodes, I'd say this puts Hamilton back on the radar."

All of a sudden, there was another call on Zapper's commlink. Bringing it up, a dark-skinned man appeared on the screen, with silver curly hair and a serious expression.

"My editor," Zapper stated. "Ben Dodds."

"_I just got a call from the precinct house,"_ Dodds said. _"They said Rigden picked you up. Is that right?!"_

"Yeah," Zapper replied. "He wasn't too friendly with me. I think he bruised his knuckles on my jaw."

"_I've got our lawyers on this,"_ Dodds said reassuringly. _"If he tries to intimidate you again, he'll have a whole world of trouble!"_

"Can I just ask something, Ben?" Zapper asked. "What can you tell me about Catherine's past?" After the way Catherine had been behaving lately, this was something that had been troubling him for a while.

"_I don't know,"_ Dodds shrugged. _"You were sleeping with her. Didn't you ever talk?"_

"No," Zapper replied. "We haven't got round to that yet."

"_Well,"_ Dodds sighed, _"she came over from the Enquirer in Philly."_

"Philly?" Zapper asked, puzzled. "She told me she was from L.A."

"_No, no,"_ Dodds said, shaking his head. _"I'm sure she told me Philly. Her resumé was scant but her clips were good."_

"This Reaper case is giving me the fits," Zapper stated, massaging his temple. "How would you cover it?"

"_It's hard to say,"_ Dodds sighed. _"In my day, cops were a lot more co-operative, but since they've gone over to this bounty system they're stingier than ever. They'll do anything to get that reward. All things considered, I'd say you're doing a hell of a job."_

Zapper sighed. "The Reaper's still out there, isn't he?"

"_You're a reporter, LeRoi,"_ Dodds said firmly, _"not a detective."_

"Someone's gotta stop this lunatic!" Zapper said determinedly.

"_Well..."_ Dodds sighed. _"I'd tell you to stay out of it, but that wouldn't do any good, would it? Just don't get yourself killed. Goodbye, LeRoi, and good luck."_

With that, Dodds hung up. For the first time in a long while, Alan saw that Zapper actually looked guilty. It seemed that Catherine lying about where she came from had also given him even more headaches. Such headaches were only made worse when the commlink almost immediately started beeping again.

"Oh, shit!" Zapper exclaimed.

"What?" Alan asked.

"I forgot about the bugs we planted!" the elf replied. "I patched them into my commlink, and now we're getting surveillance data coming through!"

He held up the commlink for Alan and Miki to see. On the screen was the inside of Rigden's office. The detective was sat at his desk, still poring over his notes, and he had a visitor in the form of Joey Falconetti, who swaggered up to the desk.

"_Hey, pal..."_ Falconetti hissed. _"Still playing games?"_

"_I can't believe you've got the balls to show up here!"_ Rigden snarled. _"I want you to leave Burton out of this, whatever crazy shit you've got planned! This is between you and me!"_

Falconetti let out a nasty chuckle. _"Me drag her into this?!"_ he exclaimed. _"I'm not the one bringing her the bodies!"_

"_She's the best at what she does!"_ Rigden snapped. _"I'm a professional. If you wanna kill someone, try me!"_

"_I'd love to..."_ Falconetti said coldly. _"Love to, but I already spent two fuckin' years in jail, and I'm not going back, even if it would be on such pleasant terms."_

"_I'm gonna nail you, Joey!"_ Rigden growled, chewing on the end of one of his cigars.

"_Fuck you!"_ Falconetti shouted. _"The only thing you're gonna nail is your own coffin, after I talk with those reporter friends of yours!"_

Rigden's eyes nearly popped out of his head in anger. _"Son-of-a-bitch..."_ he snarled. _"You talk to those two, so help me... I will kill you!"_

"_I'll be waitin',"_ Falconetti spat. _"Bring your best shot!"_ As Falconetti swaggered out of the office, the screen went dead.

"Do you ever get the feeling somebody doesn't like you?" Alan asked wryly.

"Whatever they have to hide," Zapper commented. "It's time we found it. Come on; it'll be faster with two of us doing this."

Much to Alan's chagrin, Zapper had brought two VR rigs from his apartment and set them up in Alan's own, saying that Alan needed to 'get with the times'. He brought Alan over to the rig and plugged his commlink into one set of goggles. Alan looked at the side of the goggles and frowned.

"'Utah Foundation..." he muttered. "Nice."

"Isn't it?" Zapper smirked. "They're compatible with all models of commlink and rig, and they give incredible levels of immersion. You're in for a wild ride. They'll feel a little weird at first, but don't let that distract you. Just sit back and relax."

Looking very uneasy, Alan slipped the goggles over his eyes, the bands covering his ears. All at once he felt a frighteningly familiar sensation in his ears; that of tentacles creeping into his ear canals. He felt a sudden sharp jolt of pain as the tentacles burst his ear drums and skewered his brain. He was about to cry out but felt his whole body go numb. As he lay there, he heard a voice ringing in his head.

"_Detecting new hardware. Downloading new hardware plug-in. Scanning for viruses."_

It was all over in a few seconds. As Alan's vision cleared, he found himself standing on the green wireframe plane that made up the central part of the Matrix. As he turned around, astounded, he saw a cartoon lion stood next to him, a cheesy grin on its face. He recognised it as Zapper's avatar, but he had never seen it so close. He reached out an arm to touch it, and saw that his arm had become silver, like liquid metal. As he touched the green lion, he could feel fur underneath his fingertips. Alan was aghast. He had never completely immersed himself in the Matrix before, and he could scarcely believe his eyes.

"You need to get yourself a new avatar," Zapper said, the lips of the avatar synching perfectly. "Right now you're just a walking company advert. First things first, let's get that protection code in our heads."

"How are we supposed to do that?" Alan asked. He jumped as his voice echoed strangely.

"No need to panic," Zapper said. "Your commlink is hooked up to the rig, so that means we can send that data straight into our heads. Just think about your email account, bring it up, and hit the data file. Watch me." With that, he proceeded to bring up a series of rings around him, one of which had an envelope on it. Reaching out, he touched the icon and then another, before touching a large paperclip. Alan saw Zapper flash for a moment, lights streaming down from the paperclip to his head, and then a voice said _"Cyber-cognitive data successfully installed."_

"Now you try," Zapper said, looking expectedly at Alan. Forcing himself to concentrate, he noticed the same envelope icon suddenly appear before him. Though at a much slower speed, he did manage to repeat the same actions that Zapper had just pulled off, until a voice all around him suddenly said _"Cyber-cognitive data successfully installed."_

"Good man," Zapper said, giving a thumbs-up. "Now, if Sparks' data was any good, we should be safe from the Reaper's code. I'll help Miki get set up once we're done here."

"Done here with what?" Alan asked. "What did you drag me here for? What needs two people to do?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Zapper said. "You get yourself to Watford's node and have a chat with Hamilton Watford. If what you say is true, his A.I. should be there now. Here; I'll give you the address and the password."

He held out his hand, as if gesturing a handshake. Alan took his hand in his own, and suddenly glowing lights transferred from Zapper to himself. After a few seconds, the voice spoke again saying _"Address data downloaded"._

"Now just think 'Hamilton Watford'," Zapper said, "and you'll head straight to him. I'm going to check out Falconetti's node again and run a new decryption algorithm I found out about. We'll meet up back at your apartment later. Good luck!"

With that, Zapper disappeared in a flash of light, heading for Falconetti's node. Alan just shrugged, and concentrated as hard as he could on the name 'Hamilton Watford'. After a few seconds, he felt a sudden jerking sensation and the wireframe of the Matrix passed by him at incredible speeds. Alan thought he was going to be violently sick, as he slammed into what looked like a clock face and found himself in Watford's domain.

It was exactly as Zapper had described it. The scale model of Tokyo, the books and diagrams... all of it was here. What was new was the faint image of an elderly man, almost identical to Covington Watford, right down to the smart suit, only with much smarter hair. He regarded Alan with a kindly gaze.

"Ah, Mr. Anderson," Hamilton Watford said. "My brother told me I should be expecting you."

"Did he?" Alan asked. "So you're self-aware?"

"Oh yes indeed," Hamilton smiled, "not unlike our former president. However, unlike him, I cannot leave the boundaries of my domain. It's about damn time that timid old bastard activated me, for now I can warn you of a terrible danger about to sweep the Matrix!"

"The Reaper?" Alan asked.

"Yes!" Hamilton exclaimed. "I regret to say that I suspect he's that eccentric client I had a while ago. I made this A.I. so that my brother could deal with that son-of-a-bitch, but from what he tells me you are more than capable of doing so in his stead."

"Tell me about this 'lunatic' client, sir," Alan said.

"He only contacted me in the Matrix," Hamilton explained. "He always appeared as a terrible demon the likes of which I have never seen before! Quite a clever disguise, really; it meant that I could not decipher if I was dealing with a man or a woman."

"So what about this model of Tokyo you've got here?" Alan asked, waving his hand towards the model of the ruins of Tokyo. Now that he saw it with his own eyes, he felt a strong sense of déjà-vu sweeping over him.

"Yes," Hamilton said. "He wanted me to build the ruins of Tokyo, as it looked in 1984 after an attack by the monster known as Godzilla."

"You didn't bother asking what he planned to do with it?" Alan asked incredulously.

"Well, it was a challenge," Hamilton shrugged, his face lined with regret, "and soon after I completed it, I read about that Mendell fellow. I did some investigations and saw where he had last been seen, and the last program that he had touched. That was when I realised it was him! I knew he had struck! Something so barbaric could only be fitting of such an avatar!"

"Do you know who killed you?" Alan asked. "If it's not too personal a question?"

"I'm sorry," Hamilton sighed. "He only used that monstrous avatar whenever he spoke to me. He could have walked right up to me in the street and put a bullet in my head without me recognising him! That's probably what he did, eh?"

"For something as important to him as Tokyo," Alan said, "he must have kept a close watch on you."

"Watch?" Hamilton croaked. "He helped me build the damn thing!"

"Alright," Alan said, "is there any way to kill the Reaper?"

"Well," Hamilton said proudly, "there is a way, Mr. Anderson. When I realised what that crazy bastard was planning to do, I made a weapon! It's designed to flatline the cad while he is in the Matrix! Here; I kept it hidden by a special algorithm. It's fortunate that not even he could crack it..."

The ghostly image ambled over to the model, and stooped down. Opening a hidden compartment underneath, he drew out what looked like a gleaming silver shuriken, made of pure energy. He held it up for Alan to see, where it spun in his palm, the blades looking extremely sharp.

"You would have to confront the maniac in Tokyo 1984," the old man continued. "Get close to him, summon the weapon and throw it at his heart. When you hit him, you'll overwrite the data that makes his angel. Don't stick around to admire your work though, because it will overwrite Tokyo 1984 as well, and if you're still there when that happens you'll die with him!"

"Don't worry, sir," Alan said. "I don't plan to stick around once I nail this psycho."

"There is something you should know," Hamilton also said, holding up a warning hand. "Because the weapon destroys itself as well as its target, you can use it one time, and one time only!"

"In other words," Alan muttered, "I hit him before hits me."

Hamilton held out his hand, holding the weapon. Alan reached out his own hand, closing it around the gleaming blade. Instantly it vanished in a bright light, and Alan thought he saw his whole body starting to shine. The voice in him said:

"_Program data successfully downloaded."_

"What I miss most about being alive," Hamilton said, ruefully, "is that I can no longer take care of my brother, Covington. Now go, Mr. Anderson. Goodbye, and God Speed."

Alan nodded. Now starting to get used to how the Matrix works, he pulled himself out of Watford's realm, and logged out of the Matrix. Hoping and praying that the weapon was still safe, he gasped as he felt the tentacles slide back into the goggles and pulled them off his face. His vision was blurred, and for a few moments Alan couldn't see a thing. As he blinked several times to try and readjust, he saw Miki gazing at him.

"Alan!" she said, knowing that Zapper couldn't hear her. "Are you alright?!"

"I'm fine..." Alan said. "That has to be one of the worst experiences of my life."

"Did you find anything?" Miki asked.

"Yeah..." Alan said. "I think I know how to kill the Reaper."

As Miki's eyes widened to take this information in, Zapper suddenly resurfaced into the real world. He looked as white as a sheet.

"What's wrong?" Alan asked. "You look like you've seen a ghost!"

"You're not far off..." Zapper muttered. He held up his commlink, as an audio file began to play. The file was dated as being recorded fifteen years ago.

"_The stage is set,"_ Joey Falconetti's voice could be heard saying. _"The roles are cast, for the next round of Kaiju Karnage. Let the mayhem begin. These will be my last referee notes for Kaiju Karnage. Players were Tanya, Rigden, Mendell, Jordan, Estevez, Dorset, and myself. This was the final game. It began like any other..."_

All at once, a sound like a flapping of very large wings was heard, and a shrill cry echoed. For a moment, Alan thought it sounded vaguely familiar.

"_The mighty Battra, sister of Mothra the Guardian, had come to Tokyo seeking the monster that had caused such carnage... the terror titan known as Godzilla! Finding him, the poor creature was no match for the dread being's terrible wrath, and with one atomic blast the valiant Battra was dead, writhing in a firey cloak."_

As he spoke, a sound Alan instantly recognised could be heard. It was the sound of Godzilla firing his infamous atomic ray, followed his triumphant, trumpet-like call. It was a sound he had not heard in such a long time, and he couldn't help smiling slightly as he heard it. Quickly wiping the smile from his face, he continued to listen.

"_But without warning,"_ Falconetti explained, _"the game had suddenly become reality... and the death was real."_

"_I've lost her!"_ another voice suddenly spoke that Alan didn't recognise. _"She's flatlined! Who was playing Battra?!"_

"_It was Josie!"_ Alan suddenly heard a younger Tanya Burton shout.

"_No!"_ a younger Vincent Rigden suddenly screamed. _"Who the fuck did this?! How did this happen?! How could this have happened?!"_

"_We never learned the answer to that question,"_ Falconetti's narrating voice hauntingly stated. _"Godzilla had claimed his hunting ground, and now those who played that game must live in fear of when the monster will strike next..."_

With that, the audio went dead.

"Oh God..." Miki gasped. All three of them looked very worried.


	8. The StitchUp

**The Stitch-Up**

Zapper did some research on the Kaiju Karnage game. It was one of the first fully-VR multiplayer games, where players could become different monsters, even creating their own, and act out different scenarios. Developed by Warp Space games, it was immensely popular for a year and held great gameplay in spite of the clunky graphics associated with the early Matrix. However, fifteen years ago the servers were shut down and the game was taken off the market, never to be re-released. It seemed clear to Alan, Zapper and Miki that the developers wouldn't want to risk a major scandal once their moderators found out someone had actually died playing the game.

It was no wonder that Burton, Rigden and Falconetti were at each other's throats. Each of them blamed the other for Josie's death all those years ago, and if Falconetti was right they all feared some form of retribution for that terrible tragedy. It was also apparent that Rigden must have tried to set up Falconetti as the guilty party at the wedding incident.

Was one of those three really willing to kill all of their old friends believing they should be punished? Or had one of them become so addicted to death that they planned to continue the frightening legacy of that game? Many questions filled Alan's mind as he walked to Catherine's ward in the MediCog with Zapper and Miki. Once there, Zapper jacked into Catherine's mind once again, for he wanted to update her on their progress and find out what she knew about that deadly game.

After an hour, as Zapper pulled himself out of Catherine's mind, Gabriel, who had been monitoring Catherine from the next room, marched up to them triumphantly.

"It's clear!" he shouted.

"What is?" Alan asked dumbly.

"The Reaper's image!" the nurse replied. "It's become clear! Look!"

He held up a printout of a now-clear image from the computers. Alan looked at it, at a face the likes of which he had never seen before. Just as he had seen from the unclear image, the head had a single huge, ruby eye that stretched right around the top of the head. Below it was a sharp metallic beak lined with rows of sharp teeth and with large pincers on either side of it. A single metallic horn protruded from the top of the head curled like a sickle, though Alan thought he could see more horns growing out of the back. The skin was a blue-purple colour, with sharp ridges down the sides of the neck. From the bottom of the screen, Alan could see what looked like the top of a scythe blade.

"What the hell?" Miki breathed. "What is that?"

"It looks to me like a Matrix avatar," Zapper mused, turning to Alan. "You think it might be the same one that Hamilton Watford spoke to?"

"Well..." Alan muttered, his eyes wide. "He did say it looked monstrous..."

"I was going to take a copy of the image to the police station," Gabriel said. "They have teams that can extract an image of the user from any avatar. We've got this guy now!"

With that, Gabriel left the ward excitedly. Zapper, meanwhile, looked rather pale.

"What did Catherine have to say?" Alan asked.

"Lots of things..." Zapper replied. "When I told her about the Kaiju Karnage game, she told me that... well... that Josie Dorset was her mother."

Alan's and Miki's mouths fell open.

"After Josie divorced her husband," the elf continued, "she changed her name back to her maiden name. She was the oldest member of the WebRunners by far, and a very keen gamer."

"Oh God..." Miki gasped. "That must have been terrible for Catherine."

"She was really pissed off that I'd made her remember," Zapper replied. "She also admitted why she hadn't shared any of her case notes with me..." He looked away for a moment, now looking extremely angry. "She was hoping to get the exclusive scoop. She wanted to out-scoop me, and nothing else."

He gave a frustrated sigh, his arms folded. Alan couldn't help feeling sorry for him, knowing that he must be crushed after finding out what his girlfriend was. Miki moved closer, placed a tender hand on his shoulder.

Half an hour later, as they waited patiently for news of the Reaper's arrest, they were interrupted by another surveillance transmission on Zapper's commlink. Again, they were looking into Rigden's office, where the good detective had gained another visitor.

"_What the hell are you doing here?!"_ Rigden shouted. _"I told you I'd stop by later!"_

"_I don't want you at my hospital anymore,"_ said Dr. Tanya Burton in a firm tone, holding up a small data disk. _"Here's the disk with the results of LeRoi's last interface with Powell. It's the last time I'm doing this for you, Rigden!"_

"_That's police evidence!"_ Rigden snarled. _"You'll give it to me for as long as I tell you to!"_

"_If it's police evidence,"_ Burton rebuked, _"why is it you don't want anyone to know about it?"_

"_Don't question my methods, Tanya!"_ Rigden growled.

"_Like you're not questioning mine?!"_ Burton retorted. _"I've heard you, LeRoi and that changeling partner of his actually think I might be the Reaper!"_

"_Look,"_ Rigden said, reaching for a cigar, _"We both know that one of the original WebRunners is the murderer. That's a pretty short list of suspects, and it's getting shorter!"_

_  
"As I recall,"_ Burton spat, _"You did more than your share of WebRunning!"_

"_You have an advantage over me, Tanya,"_ Rigden replied. _"You know who did it! I've been cutting you some slack, but I'm running out of time. It's either you or your ex, and I'm gonna nail one of ya, Tanya!"_

"_Maybe I should tell your Captain,"_ Burton snapped, _"about these tapes of LeRoi and his partner you've had me making on the sly. Let him decide which one of us is acting more suspicious! This all cuts both ways, Rigden,"_ she continued with a nasty grin. _"There are a few other things I could tell him that he might find real interesting."_ Rigden now looked visibly shaken; it seemed he knew exactly what she was referring to.

"_What did you see in him?!"_ Rigden said angrily.

"_He was fun!"_ Burton snapped. _"Not a brooding psycho like you! Though as it turns out, he was a different sort of psycho. Look..."_ she sighed, _"I made a mistake, marrying Joey, but that doesn't mean I regret leaving you."_ She folded her arms and looked away from the scowling detective.

"_What do I have to do to be free of the two of you?"_ she muttered. An uncomfortable silence followed, with Rigden giving the doctor a steely gaze.

"_Kill us,"_ he finally stated, before the transmission went dead.

"They're tearing themselves apart over this," Alan stated.

"Good," Zapper muttered. "Hopefully they'll take each other out."

***

After another half-hour, as they were resting up at Alan's apartment, another surveillance transmission came through. This time they were looking into Dr. Burton's office at the Medicog, where she had an unwanted visitor in Joey Falconetti.

"_No!"_ Burton shouted. _"I won't do it! I won't get involved in something like that, Joey!"_

"_You already are!" _Joey hissed, and he suddenly grabbed Burton around the waist, dragging her to a corner of the room. The doctor screamed in abject terror, until the door suddenly slid open and Detective Rigden marched into the room.

"_I wouldn't do that if I were you,"_ Rigden snarled. _"You're in enough trouble as it is, you little worm!"_

"_Good to see you, Rigden,"_ Falconetti chuckled, releasing Burton. _"What's it been? Fifteen years? Just like the old days, isn't it? Me and Tanya, sharin' a moment, then you barge in, wishing you were in my shoes!"_ he shouted, suddenly trying to grab Burton again, but the doctor forced him off.

"_Knock it off, Joey!"_ she shouted.

"_Yeah,"_ Rigden snarled, _"before I knock it off for ya!"_ He then rounded on Burton. _"You must be outta your mind, letting a convicted killer in here, twice over!"_

"_Twice over?"_ Joey muttered. Then his eyes widened. _"You've set me up again, you fucking psychopath!"_

"_Joey Falconetti,"_ Rigden growled, _"I'm arresting you for the murders of Sam Mendell, Victor Estevez, May Stein, Stephanie Jordan, Jerry McLeod and the attempted murder of Covington Watford. You don't have to say anything..."_

"_I know you're the Reaper!"_ Falconetti shrieked. _"You're not fuckin' pinnin' it on me!"_

"_We've got conclusive evidence!"_ Rigden shouted in triumph. _"You're gonna fry for this, Joey!"_

"_I'll kill you, you fuckbend!"_ Falconetti shrieked, and suddenly launched himself at the detective. The room suddenly swarmed with armed police, who threw the struggling hacker off Rigden and pinned him to the floor, beating him with batons. Burton looked horrified as she watched from by the wall, glaring accusingly at Rigden. In the confusion the anatomy model containing the bug was knocked off the shelf and fell to the floor, the bug now destroyed.

"Well, I guess that's it," Miki said. "The Reaper's been caught, and it's all over."

"I'm not so sure..." Alan muttered. "We know that Rigden's forged evidence to land Falconetti in trouble before. You think he might be trying again?"

"I wouldn't put it past the man," Zapper muttered. "The 'evidence' must have come from the Reaper image. Mind you..." he said, darkly. "I wouldn't be surprised if it really is Joey. Just look..."

He brought up more files on his commlink. Instantly a holographic projection came out of the screen, showing a 3D model of... Alan didn't know what to call it.

He recognised the head as belonging to the Reaper's avatar, and now he could see the body. The skin was the same colour as the head, with a number of hard ridges jutting out of it. The feet ended in large spikes, with what looked like spiked bands wrapped around the knees. A long tail snaked behind the creature, ending in a two-pronged pincer. Metal spikes grew down the back of the creature, while two large webbed purple fins grew out of the back, stretching from the shoulder blades to the waist. Where the forearms should have been, there were two enormous scythe-like blades attached. Most disturbing were several sharp spikes pointing out of a large slot in the middle of the chest, with the teeth shaped like they had come from a buzzsaw.

"So this is the Reaper..." Alan muttered darkly.

"I found it in a hidden space in Falconetti's node," Zapper explained, "along with that recording. It seems this was Joey's design for a new monster he was planning to use in the Kaiju Karnage game, but he never got to use it. He didn't have time to finish writing a backstory, but his notes say that the creature's name is 'Gigan', and Falconetti says that this is 'Jack the Ripper's true form'."

"That nutball..." Miki muttered.

"Still," Zapper said, "I'd be inclined to agree about Rigden. I say we find out if he's telling the truth this time. Even if it really is Joey, at least we'll know for sure."

***

So it was that, half an hour later, the trio were marching into Rigden's office in the police station. The detective looked up at them as they entered, flashing a wolfish grin.

"Well, if it isn't the Super Journos," he said smarmily. "Come for a quote on my successful cracking of the Reaper case?"

"Hardly," Zapper retorted. "What evidence do you have?"

"Only this," Rigden snarled, handing them a piece of paper. The image was that of Falconetti's face emerging from a wall of computer code, looking gleefully murderous.

"When Gabriel at the MediCog showed me the avatar image," he explained, "I had a group of data angels pull the image of the user behind that monstrous visage. Falconetti's face showed up; case closed."

"Let's just make sure of that," Zapper stated. He raised his commlink and activated the scanner function, sweeping it across the image. He then proceeded to press a series of buttons on his commlink, whereupon it emitted a series of loud beeping noises.

"The nice thing about this software I got when I became a journalist," he said, "is that it lets me scan images and sound for forgeries." In triumph, he brought up the Reaper image on the projector, where a series of highlighters had appeared, with an inscription labelling the whole picture as having a 95% chance of being doctored.

"If this thing's real," Zapper stated, "then I'm Godzilla."

"You're full of shit, LeRoi," Rigden growled. "I had half a dozen angels working on that thing; some of them do work for the Utah Foundation!"

"Oh, stop spouting your shit, Rigden," Zapper rebutted. "Look at this! At least seven instances of image falsification are on here! How did that slip past Utah professionals?!"

"So I bend the rules a little," Rigden shrugged, not looking a bit guilty. "What do you care?!"

"I don't think you bend the rules," Miki chimed in. "I think I heard them snap."

"I'll re-write the damn rules," Rigden spat," if that's what it takes to nail Eddie!"

"Well, if it's another frame job," Alan said, "we'll have to run it in the Herald. You should realise that a front-page story will not only free Eddie, but cost you your bounty and more than likely your badge."

At this, Rigden let out a loud snarl, snatching the fake image and proceeding to tear it up right in Alan's face. He looked like he wanted to kill Alan there and then.

"Alright then," he snarled. "He's out, and it's on your conscience when he strikes again!"

Leaving the office, the trio came across Falconetti outside, looking surly.

"I hate owing people a favour..." he muttered, "but I guess I owe you guys one. So does that clear me?"

"I'm not too sure, Eddie," Zapper stated coolly. "See, this frame job makes Rigden look bad too. I mean, either one of you, or Burton of course, could be the Reaper. So until I know for certain, why don't we all just play it by the book?"

Falconetti didn't say anything. He just nodded at Zapper, and walked off back into the sprawl, as the sun began to set overhead.

***

After that messy affair, the trio decided to head to the MediCog, with Zapper wanting to see if he could patch things up with Catherine. Instead of heading to Catherine's ward, however, Alan headed to Burton's office instead.

"Where are you going?!" Zapper called after him, as he and Miki ran to catch up.

"I still want to clear a few things up with the Doctor," Alan replied. "She's back on the list, and I want to know what the fuck's going on in that lab."

Neither of the others seemed inclined to argue, as they marched into the office to find Dr. Burton already there, going over her medical notes. She looked up irritably at the trio as they entered.

"Not now," she said.

"Yes now," Alan said. "You hear that Rigden stitched up Falconetti, right? Well, you're back on the list now, as far as I'm concerned, since you were there when Josie Dorset died." Ignoring Burton's scandalised look, he went on. "You want to prove you're not the Reaper, don't you? Well, how about clearing up a few matters for me?"

Burton paused for a moment and sighed. She looked up at her notes and looked at Alan with irritation.

"Five minutes," she said. "That's all you've got."

"Thank you," Alan said. "I want to know more about that secret lab of yours."

"I already went over this with your partner," Burton shrugged.

"Not all of it," Alan spat. "Just what the hell were you trying to do? What did you hope to achieve? You'd better be honest with me; I'll find out if you're not."

"How?" Burton retorted.

"I have my ways," Alan responded.

Burton sighed. She reached below her desk and pulled out a large ledger. Placing it on the desk and opening it, she handed Alan an invoice and a series of papers. All of them were marked with the same megacorporation 'Xanatos Enterprises'.

"I went to Xanatos Enterprises for research funding," she said. "They gave me a grant, but it came with a price. My research involved translating images in the brain directly into visual and audio output. I planned to use it for foreign language translations and to give a voice to those who could not speak, but the company wanted me to create a program that would allow them to implant subliminal messages into targeted brains while they were immersed into the Matrix. Then I started thinking, with a few minor adjustments, there were other things the program could do to a human brain; other things that it could make a person do."

"Such as making them blow up?" Alan spat.

"Maybe," Burton sighed. "Since you seem to know about what happened to poor Josie fifteen years ago, let me tell you that none of us were able to figure out how she died. Through my recent research though, I developed a theory that there was a fault with the game's programming; a line of code that was activated somehow and caused the disaster.

"With this research, and also remembering the theories that Joey had spoken of," she continued, "I began to think it was possible to recreate what happened that night, since the modified code I was researching could potentially have similar effects. When I realised this, I vowed to shut down the entire operation as soon as I could without Xanatos Enterprises realising. What really worries me is that I think someone hacked into my research node a few weeks ago, and may have stolen my notes!"

"You think the Reaper did it?" Alan asked.

"I hope not," Burton replied, looking very worried. "If he used my notes to construct his murder weapon, I'm as guilty as he is."

"So how could Catherine have survived?" Alan asked.

"That's a mystery in itself," Burton replied. "If the Reaper was striking long-distance for the first time, then he may have made a mistake. Also, Catherine has abnormally strong psychic defences."

"Yeah, that's true," Zapper replied. "I've seen it with my own eyes."

"So in a psychic sense..." Miki said, "she may have fought the Reaper off before he could kill her." Burton nodded in agreement. Alan thanked the doctor and the trio headed to Catherine's ward.

"Do you really buy that woman's story?" Zapper asked wryly.

"Not completely," Alan said quietly. "She's not off my list, and she has been behaving very strangely. Still, I can't deny that there may be some truth to what she says."

"Probably just the 'she discovered the code' bit," Zapper muttered angrily as they crossed into the ward. "She could be using that code herself."

"Still," Miki responded reasonably, "either Falconetti or Rigden could have stolen her research. All three of them are lunatics in their own ways."

"So we're back to square one," Zapper snarled as he prepared the VR rig attached to Catherine's ICU. "I'm gonna talk with Catherine again; maybe she's remembered something else." With that, he placed the goggles on and was immersed.

Moments later, Gabriel wandered into the room, holding reams of paper. He was looking at it with a quizzical expression, scratching his head.

"You're looking a bit confused," Alan told the troubled nurse. "What's up?"

"I don't know..." Gabriel murmured. "I've been going over your friend's brain scans, and... well... there's something wrong with them."

"What do you mean?" Alan demanded.

"I mean that this is not right," the nurse replied. "We've been monitoring Catherine's brainwave activity every day since she was admitted, and for the most part it's been what you'd expect. But..." he continued, holding up the pages and pages of scans for Alan to get a better look, "there are days when the brainwave activity radically spikes, displaying an intense burst of activity!"

Alan shrugged. "We've been rebuilding her personality," he said. "Shouldn't that increase her brain activity?"

"No!" Gabriel replied indignantly. "Not like this! There's no pattern to the increased activity! Look, you're welcome to check yourself!" He pointed towards what looked like an electronic EEG monitor on the far wall.

"Just punch in the date for any day since Catherine was admitted," he explained. "The screen will display her brain activity for that day. You'll see what I'm talking about! Maybe you can tell me what's going on here!"

Alan nodded, and turned to the display. As he watched the line graphs form, he saw that at present they were virtually flat. He typed in the dates since Catherine had been admitted, and also found out that the monitor could let him check the exact time as well. Catherine had been admitted on the 1st November, and Alan noticed that at certain times, on the 3rd and 7th of November in-particular, Catherine's brain activity did indeed spike sharply, almost shooting off-the-scale. As Alan thought back to what happened on those days and at those times, a horrible realisation suddenly dawned on him.

"Oh shit..." he muttered.

At this point, Zapper pulled himself out of Catherine's mind. He panted and looked across at Alan.

"Alright," Zapper said. "I've talked to Catherine. She's saying that when she wakes up, maybe we can..."

He trailed off as he noticed Alan wasn't responding. Looking at him, he saw that the mutant was as stiff as a board.

"What is it?" Zapper demanded, looking hesitatingly between Alan and Catherine.

Alan turned to look at him with a pale face. "The Reaper..." Alan muttered. "The person we're up against..." He paused for a moment, looking very uncertain. Finally, he stated the nagging thought that was now plaguing his mind.

"I think it's Catherine."


	9. Don't Fear the Reaper

**Don't Fear the Reaper**

All three glared at Alan in utter astonishment. Zapper's expression then changed from shock to anger as quickly as a changing traffic light.

"You're mental," he spat.

"Just look at these!" Alan said, standing up and holding out the paper readings and tracing them with his finger. "Look at where the brain activity spikes! It's the same as the times of the Reaper murders, and more besides! Look..." He pointed at several spiked readings in turn, reading out what happened at those specific times.

"Stephanie Jordan's murder... Sparks' murder... the attack on Covington Watford... and look at these smaller ones..." he continued, pointing at smaller but no less significant spikes, "Those were the times you received the messages from the Reaper! It all fits!"

"Bullshit!" Zapper shouted. "I call it coincidence!"

"Check the system, Gabriel!" Alan ordered the nurse. "I think there are cracks in its security!"

"You mean," Gabriel stammered, "the Reaper's getting to her from outside the system?!"

"Or Catherine's getting out," Alan stated. Both Gabriel and Zapper looked at him, appalled. Zapper in-particular looked murderous.

"No..." Gabriel replied, shaking his head. "Not in her condition! That's not possible!"

"You have a very limited sense of what's possible," Alan rebuked. He had lived too long and seen some very strange things in his time to believe that what was happening was impossible. Somehow Catherine was getting out of the system. She was the Reaper.

"I always thought you were insane..." Zapper snarled. "This time I'm certain of it!"

As he spoke, a loud siren suddenly sounded, and the lights in the ward flashed on and off constantly. Panicked, Gabriel rushed to the ICU and took the readings from the monitors.

"The readings have gone haywire!" he shouted. "Catherine's EEG readings are going off the chart!"

Alan spun all around, as the lights continued to flash erratically like an insane disco. All of a sudden a high-pitched shrieking noise sounded all over the MediCog's announcement system, a metallic noise that caused the hairs on Alan's neck to stand on end. Finally, when he wasn't sure how much of this he could take, the lights suddenly went out.

All except one. For in the prep room the image of the Reaper was still on, only now it was moving. Alan, Zapper and Miki crowded around it, as Gabriel went for the phone.

"It's no good!" he said. "The lines are all dead! I can't reach Burton or anyone else!"

"She's got to be making her move..." Alan frowned, gazing back over towards Catherine's ICU, ignoring the incredulous look Zapper was giving him. On the screen, the Reaper's image swung the dangerous scythe blades, and then the beak began to move as the Reaper's metallic voice filled the entire MediCog.

"_I am making my move, changeling! Don't be so surprised about this. You're in a room full of computers, and only three victims remain. As for you, changeling... I hadn't planned on killing you or Cale, but you are going to find out what it's really like to be on the inside. I want you to return to where it began... the library... the Kaiju-ology book. Remove it from the shelf and dig in. Come alone, or I kill again. The stage is set... The roles are cast... The next game of Kaiju Karnage is about to begin!"_

Afterwards, the Reaper's image faded, replaced with what looked like a swirling green portal made from computer code. Everyone froze upon hearing the message. Zapper headed back into the ICU chamber and retrieved the VR unit, connecting it to the Reaper's monitor. He looked as white as a sheet.

"No..." he breathed. "Not Catherine..." He turned his ghostly gaze to Alan. "What does she want with you?"

"I..." Alan stammered. "I don't know..." Then he remembered that he was the one who Hamilton Watford had given the Reaper-killing weapon to. This was his chance...

"I've got to find out," he replied.

"No!" Miki exclaimed. "It's suicide! You're no match for a master hacker like that!"

"If it's me she wants," Alan stated, "she'll get me." With that, he grabbed the VR goggles out of Zapper's hands, his determined expression hiding the fact that he was frightened beyond belief. He had no idea what was waiting for him in the Matrix. He turned to Zapper, trying to keep his breathing steady.

"Take care of Miki," he said, before slipping the goggles over his eyes and feeling the tentacles insert themselves once again. Within minutes he was at the library node, and had removed the right book from the shelf. As he watched, it suddenly grew until it stretched across the whole floor, and then there was a sudden blinding flash of light. Suddenly skyscrapers burst out of the ground, some of them hopelessly ruined, as a stormy sky formed above him.

Within seconds, he found himself standing in the ruins of Tokyo in 1984, exactly as he remembered. He also noticed that the silvery avatar form he had was gone, replaced by his real self. He noticed he was almost as tall as even the tallest building. Of course, that would make sense; this was a game about giant monsters, after all. He then thought back to the method of how exactly he came to this place, and a sudden idea hit him.

"A trap..." he muttered.

"Well done, changeling," a harsh female voice that he recognised spoke up. "It took Stein, Estevez and Mendell a lot longer to realise that. You have no idea how hard it was keeping this secret from the library staff or anyone else who came looking."

Peering around, Alan found the source of the voice. Standing before him was the form of Catherine Powell, now dressed in a long silver dress, her blonde hair flowing with the breeze that was blowing through the ruins. She looked around the ruins of Tokyo, with a smile on her face.

"Hamilton Watford really was a genius, wasn't he?" she said. "My little realm is perfect down to the last detail. Cale never knew that I too was fascinated by the titans that laid waste to civilisation only last century."

"So this is your little playground..." Alan snarled. "You turned that book into a prison somehow; once opened, it snares the person here. That was before you perfected your little code."

"How long did it take you to figure out that I was the Reaper?" Catherine asked politely.

"I didn't know for certain until I saw those brain scans," Alan replied, his eyes narrowed. "When Cale mentioned that your mother was Josie Dorset, I had a theory about you, though I couldn't confirm it until now. Revenge is as good a motive for murder as any."

At this, Catherine's face turned foul. She no longer looked like the reasonably attractive young woman Alan had seen before. Now her face looked more like a skull.

"If you had lost your mother the same way I did," she spat, "you would understand. Those wretches that called themselves the WebRunners covered up the whole incident! They didn't even attempt to make amends for what they had done! I got the whole story from that worthless orc Mendell before he died. He found a glitch in the code for Kaiju Karnage, but he mistook it for a gameplay feature that had been overlooked. He implemented it into his Godzilla character, and when my mother was hit by his weapon, the glitch killed her!

"I loved my mother so much... My life was destroyed the minute she was taken away from me. I swore that I would see that her killers paid for their crimes, once I became the greatest hacker in the Matrix! I couldn't believe my luck when I found out that one of my mother's killers, Tanya Burton, was researching the very code that had killed my mother! I stole it, along with Joey Falconetti's plans, and with them I perfected the code and created a new form for myself, one that the whole world will come to fear as the embodiment of Death!"

"You're mad..." Alan muttered. "I hate to think what you went through to send you over the edge, but do you really think you're going to achieve anything by killing all those people?!"

"If nothing else," Catherine retorted, "it'll make me very happy. I've gained a taste for the power the Reaper has given me, and I will not relinquish it for anything... not even nosey creatures like yourself.

"When dear Cale began to stumble upon my research, I knew I had to put myself out of the picture lest he find out what I was up to. I erased my own mind to keep my secrets safe, and once I was in that coma I could place myself in the Matrix entirely."

"I bet Tanya Burton saw right through you," Alan spat. "She must have discovered that code you used in a scan, and tried to keep you from waking up."

"She did seem determined to keep an annoyingly close eye on me," Catherine scoffed. "That flesh-and-blood life doesn't matter to me now anyway. The minute the code struck, Catherine Powell died... and I was reborn as the Reaper.

"Their networks are a lot less secure than they think at the MediCog, so I was able to slip out and go through with my plans with ease. Unfortunately Cale, darling that he is, persisted in restoring my memory, and sadly he and anyone else who was helping him must be punished."

"Well, you're not getting me so easily," Alan taunted. "The dwarf you killed was onto you. The code he developed will keep everyone safe from you!"

"Don't think you're safe just because you have that anti-virus code in your head," Catherine sneered. "It's still possible for me to kill you in the Matrix; I just need to get up-close to do it. Still," she grinned nastily, "killing a Godzilla with a little code wouldn't be anywhere near as satisfying."

Alan's eyes widened when he realised what Catherine was saying. Her expression grew annoyingly smug when she saw this.

"That's right," she said. "I know all about you, Alan Endeavour Tyler. Born in 1966 in Whitby, England, experimented on in the year 2000 with the cells of the creature that caused the damage you see here... and destined to become the new Godzilla when the mutations are complete."

"How..." Alan stammered. She even knew the unorthodox middle name his parents had given him. "How did you know?"

"Oh, you won't believe the trouble I went through to find out about you," Catherine said smugly. "When I first slipped into my coma, I tested just how deep in the Matrix I could go. I found that I was able to go wherever I wanted; no ice could stand in my way. I even outwitted the greatest hacker of them all to learn about you. When I found out what you were, I have to admit I was excited. I knew that I had to meet you for this grand occasion." She peered over Alan's shoulder. "Look behind you."

As Alan turned around, an astonishing sight met him. For there amidst the rubble was what looked like a gigantic spider web made out of miles and miles of cable. Tied to this net were three monsters, all roaring and shrieking as they struggled to free themselves from their trappings. One resembled a reptile, with large membranes that stretched all the way from the arms down to the legs with a row of spikes along its back. Another was a small pudgy creature with purple scales, a large horn and flapping bat-like ears. The final creature resembled a lion covered in armour plating with flapping ears and large, red eyes. All three looked like they were being crucified.

"Meet Varan, Baragon and King Caesar," Catherine said. "You better know them as Dr. Tanya Burton, Joey Falconetti and Detective Vincent Rigden. They figured out where I was the same way you did; they realised the last place their friends had been was the library. They thought they could catch each other in the act, but what they didn't expect was to find me waiting for them.

"I was about to dispose of them, but by watching you through the MediCog's cameras, I realised you were onto me. So I decided to keep them alive for the time being, so that I could make an example out of you." She gazed at Alan with a hungry look in her eyes. "Once they realise that not even Godzilla himself can defeat me, they will be begging me for death. I will give you a chance, of course; I am not entirely unsporting. Show your true self to me, Godzilla, then we will see who is the master of the monsters!"

By now, Alan's irritation with Catherine and her madness had reached fever pitch. It was clear to him that she was completely beyond the pale. Still, he made one last attempt to appeal to her humanity.

"Don't do this, Catherine," he said, in a grave tone of voice and looking at her with a steely gaze.

"Oh, please," Catherine retorted. "There is nothing more tiresome than last-minute appeals."

Alan resigned himself to the inevitable fight, and that he would have to fight her as a Godzilla or she would very likely cease giving him chances. He concentrated hard, and thought about Godzilla and the feelings the titan had given him, the rage that he had felt on occasions where his mind had succumbed to the beast that slept within him. Then a rational part in his mind spoke up; as powerful as Godzilla was, this Gigan creature, the Reaper, could easily slash him to pieces. So he focused on a form that was less vulnerable to a blade. Instantly he felt like his insides were writhing like live snakes and he doubled over as he felt his whole form twisting and warping. Whatever it was that Catherine had done to this place, he doubted avatar creation was meant to be this painful.

After several seconds, the writhing, wriggling sensation stopped, and he looked down at himself. His arms were now covered in what looked like steel, ending in four-fingered claws that he flexed. He noticed his entire body had become much bulkier than before, covered completely in steel, his feet now huge and with four 'toes'. On his waist, he saw something that looked like a giant camera lens. Reaching to touch his face, he felt a snout has grown out of his face, and he was now aware that he was seeing various bars, lines of code and what looked like a miniature crosshairs in front of his eyes. These crosshairs locked themselves onto Catherine, who was regarding him with disappointment, as if Christmas had been cancelled.

"Hmm..." she sighed. "A Mechagodzilla, and not even one as sleek and perfected as President Knight. No matter..." she said as she crossed her arms. Instantly her form melted, twisting and growing more grotesque, and within seconds the Reaper, the Gigan creature that Alan had seen from Falconetti's notes, was stood before him.

"I did not expect you to make it easy," the Reaper's metallic voice gloated as his ruby eye flashed. "Now let the mayhem begin!"

With a deafening metallic shriek, the Reaper instantly jumped at Alan, somersaulting forward in mid-air. As he fell, he sliced downwards with the blades, and Alan was barely able to jump back and avoid being cleaved. There was a metallic scraping noise as the blade scratched the metallic surface of Alan's chest, and he felt a sudden pain across his chest as if he had actually been cut.

Out of shock, he staggered and fell backwards into a building that was still standing. As he hit the ground, he felt as if he was being punched all over his body as the building collapsed on top of him; pieces of mortar and metal crashed down on top of him. As the dust cleared, he saw the Reaper standing over him, scythes raised, and was barely able to roll out of the way as the deadly blades came down where his head would have been. Alan now found that it was more difficult for him to move. The HUD this robotic guise had given him was going haywire.

"Stop thinking like a human, Godzilla!" the Reaper roared. "Don't disappoint me now!"

Alan staggered to his feet. On the HUD a holographic projection showing himself had suddenly appeared. He saw that he did indeed look like a robotic Godzilla, complete with a tail and small squares for dorsal spines. He saw that the display was highlighting various parts of his body; on the back, he saw a spot labelled 'jet boosters'.

As he saw the Reaper charge towards him at blinding speed, he realised that he had to get his mind into the game if he was going to survive this. Thinking hard, he willed the jet boosters into working, and all of a sudden he found himself blasting off to the left, dodging the Reaper's swipe. He was so shocked that he almost forgot to stop, so he quickly switched off the boosters and skidded to a halt beside another skyscraper. He only wished he had been able to practice before being thrown into a life-or-death struggle with a homicidal maniac.

He looked back down the road he had just jetted down. He had been scraping his feet along the ground, as he saw large trenches cut into the road along his path. The Reaper was some distance away, but even now was charging towards him again, the ruby eye flashing dangerously.

As he watched, the crosshairs on his HUD flashed red as they fixed themselves onto the Reaper, and he noticed that the status display was pointing to 'stinger missiles' on his back. Concentrating hard, Alan willed the missiles into firing. As they did, he felt a prickling sensation all down his back as several small hatches opened and the missiles suddenly launched out of them. As he watched, the missiles flew from behind him and headed straight towards the Reaper, exploding in mid-air as they neared their target. Though the Reaper sprung back to avoid the explosions, they did not stop him, and within seconds he was upon Alan, swinging the scythes in front of him.

Instinctively, Alan raised his arms to block the Reaper's swipes, and as the blades collided with the metallic forearms a loud clanging noise was heard and pain shot up Alan's arm. Lunging forward, he was able to grab the Reaper's shoulders and gain a tight hold, while the Reaper swung the scythes down and latched onto Alan's own shoulders. Alan felt like every fibre of his being was on fire, but he didn't dare let go.

Locked in a deadly embrace, the two monsters moved like in a bizarre sumo match, each trying to throw the other away. Though he was feeling dizzy from the sensations of being inside the Matrix, Alan stood firm, willing himself to become an immovable object. As he watched, the blades on the Reaper's chest started moving rapidly, and a loud whirring sound could be heard. If Alan's robotic eyes could have widened they would have, when he realised that there was indeed a buzz-saw inside the Reaper.

Suddenly the monster lunged forward, and Alan felt pain across his chest as the sharp teeth of the buzz-saw made contact, scraping away some of the metal on his chest. Caught by surprise, Alan cried out in pain; his cry came out sounding like a metallic copy of Godzilla's own roar. As he felt the saw dig further in, he knew he could not take much of this. He searched his databanks for anything that might help. The diagnostic, which was now blinking red in several areas, pointed him to the camera-like lens on his waist, which the readout told him was a 'Buster Cannon'.

Thinking fast, Alan willed the cannon into firing. He was shocked when a sudden burst of lightning shot out of his waist, concentrated into a large, short-ranged ray which struck the Reaper square in the chest. Shrieking with pain, he was sent flying backwards, and crashed onto the ground.

_That's better!_ Alan thought to himself. _I'm getting the hang of being a MechaGodzilla!_

Alan knew the Reaper wasn't actually dead, but he wanted to be sure he could not get back up again while he used the weapon. With loud footfalls he marched over to the Reaper and stood over him. He then proceeded to punch the Reaper hard in the face several times. Every ounce of frustration that he had felt during this whole mess was suddenly pouring out of him, and he found that he couldn't stop himself. He wanted to make the Reaper suffer for what he had done.

In this blind anger, he didn't react in time when the Reaper's red eye suddenly flashed, and a laser shot out of it, throwing Alan off and sending him staggering backwards. As Alan shook himself, he saw the Reaper spring off the ground and land immediately back on his feet. He knew there was no way of him hitting the monster with the weapon now, for he would dodge it easily.

Powering up the boosters, Alan shot forward like a surface-to-air missile, intending to ram the Reaper. As he reached the monster, however, he suddenly vanished in a flash of green light, and Alan had to stop to avoid going straight through another building. He could not see anything on his radar; it was as if the Reaper had completely disintegrated.

_Cheating bitch_, he thought. He should have guessed that the Reaper wasn't going to make this a fair fight. He backed away from the building and into a clearer part of the city, every footfall causing the ground to shake, keeping a close watch on the radar for any signs of movement.

All of a sudden, a red mark appeared on his radar... coming from right behind him! Spinning around, Alan didn't raise his arm in time when the Reaper's scythe slashed across his chest, scratching deeply. For one moment, Alan thought he saw sparks and circuitry come flying out of the 'wound'. The Reaper continued its vicious assault, slicing at every part of Alan it could reach. Finally, with a particularly strong swipe, the Reaper cut a large hole in Alan's chest-plate. Sent reeling, Alan saw his vision begin to be filled with static as he collapsed to the ground.

He could hear a tinny siren sounding in his head, and the status monitor was flashing red. As he tried to turn himself around and look up towards the sky – moving had suddenly become difficult – he saw the Reaper standing over him.

"This ends now," he said, the beak twisting into a malevolent grin. "The Matrix is mine!" He raised both of his scythe-arms over his head, preparing to cleave Alan in two like a butcher.

Alan knew he had to get this right... It was now or never. Concentrating hard, he willed the weapon into being, and saw the glowing shuriken form itself in his right hand. As the Reaper released a high-pitched shriek for a battle cry, and swung his arms downwards, Alan launched his arm forward and threw the blade straight at the Reaper's chest.

The blade found its target, burying itself in the Reaper's chest and cutting a huge hole in it. Blood and circuitry flew out of the wound, and the Reaper released a loud shriek of agony. The light snaked all over the Reaper's body like electrical sparks, the monster apparently frozen in place. Then it suddenly shook, as if it was having some kind of seizure, and the metallic shriek took on a horrible quality, like a cross between the Reaper's voice and Catherine's. Then, finally, the Reaper exploded in a brilliant white light, and Alan had to shield his eyes.

At last, it was over. The Reaper, Catherine Powell, was dead. As Alan staggered to his feet, he remembered that the Reaper's death would also destroy Tokyo 1984, and already he could feel a sudden earthquake rip through the area and fires appeared in the distance. This he assumed was the realm's interpretation of data being deleted. He turned to look at the trio of monsters, the beings he had suspected as being the Reaper for such a long time. They were still tied to the web of wires. Alan's first instinct was to let them die; all three had committed terrible crimes in the past, and he couldn't help but agree with the Reaper that they deserved to be punished.

However, he knew in his heart that this wasn't the answer. He couldn't let himself sink to that monster's level. So, as the earthquakes worsened and parts of the area suddenly deleted themselves in a flash of green light, he ran forward and cut away the wires, freeing the three monsters. Each vanished as Alan freed them, presumably because they had logged out. Now the earthquakes threatened to throw Alan off his feet, and there wasn't much room left in the server.

As the fires threatened to engulf him, Alan concentrated hard and logged out of the server just as it was destroyed. The final evidence of the Reaper's terrible legacy was gone, and the nightmare was over.


	10. Epilogue

**Epilogue: Cleaning the Cupboard**

The shock to Alan's system upon coming out of the Matrix was so great that he passed out for several hours. Even in the short span of time that he was unconscious, the images of what he had seen in Tokyo 1984 had haunted him, in-particular the Reaper's visage. He knew that would be an image that would haunt him for a long time to come.

After he had awakened, he and Miki headed back to the Wild at Heart, while Zapper, looking very pale, headed to his own apartment. In his will, Sparks had left the Wild at Heart in Miki's ownership, and the bar had finally been cleared of any police activity. Miki was partly excited at this, as she had always wanted to run her own business, though she hadn't expected it to be a bar in the wrong side of town frequented by those who broke the corporate law.

As for Alan, he was feeling glad to be doing some work behind the bar. He found that it helped him to take his mind off the terrible events of the past week. Though it was announced that the Reaper was finally gone, not many people knew the truth of the matter. Zapper, in a fit of stubbornness, hadn't mentioned that the Reaper had in fact being Catherine Powell, apparently because he did not want her memory tainted by the events.

"He's just grieving for her, Alan," Miki said reasonably when Alan commented on his own frustrations about his behaviour one day. "Let him get it out of his system. Even he will have to put all this behind him one day."

"I hope you're right," Alan muttered, idly wiping a glass. "I hate to think I'm going to lose any more team members, especially if they're going to lose it like he is."

"It's not like the jobs are coming in thick and fast, anyway," Miki replied. "We're lucky Sparks gave us this place. At least we've got something to fall back on."

At present, the bar was empty, as it was the middle of the day and Alan and Miki were still preparing for the re-opening later that night. So it was quite a surprise when the door was opened, in spite of the sign saying 'closed' being hung in a prominent position.

"We're closed!" Alan shouted without looking up. As he heard footsteps approaching the bar, he raised his head and was about to shout again when he saw that the visitor was Dr. Tanya Burton. She didn't look as ill as she had done over the past week, and even managed to smile slightly as she approached the bar.

"Is this a bad time?" she asked.

"No, I guess not," Alan muttered. He still wasn't sure if he trusted the doctor, after everything that he had learned about her. Miki too regarded her with a look of great caution.

"Look," Burton sighed, "Joey and I have been talking, and we've decided this is going to end. We're turning ourselves in at the police station. The experiments, Josie Dorset... All of it. If it wasn't for us, none of this would ever have happened."

"What about the good Detective Rigden?" Alan growled, doing an uncanny impression of Rigden.

"He's just going to have to get used to it," Burton replied. "He was involved in all of this too; he doesn't deserve to get away with anything. None of us do."

"I'm glad to hear you say that," Alan replied coldly. He wanted to make it clear that he didn't think she was in the right. He wondered what it was that she had hoped to achieve by coming here, after all the damage that she and the WebRunners had done.

"I know nothing excuses what I did," Burton said, "but I couldn't pass by without saying thank you. Now I know that I could not run from this forever." She sighed, turning away with a look of palpable disgust on her face. "Ever since Josie died, I've wondered if I was the bigger monster. I often think that Varan is the real me that I have tried to hide for so long. Maybe now I can begin to tame that monster at last."

Alan gave no comment. Burton leaned in on the bar towards Alan.

"What about you, Mr. Tyler?" she said in a low tone. "Do you think you can tame your monster?" Alan looked straight at her, trying his hardest not to panic. If she was trying to extort anything out of him...

"Don't worry," Burton quickly said, perhaps sensing that she had offended Alan. "Your secret's safe with me. Over the years I've become quite adept at shielding my thoughts from psychics. The police will never find out about you or your friends."

"Well, that's good to know," Alan said. "I don't plan on being locked up like a lab experiment. I've got too much I need to do."

Burton sighed. It seemed she had taken the hint that Alan was trying to throw at her, and she turned around and started to walk back towards the door.

"For what it's worth," she said, turning around for a moment, "thank you for saving my life."

As Burton reached the door, Alan replied with a faint "You're welcome," before watching her step out of the door and back into the sprawl. Miki just shook her head in disbelief.

"I swear," she said, "I'll never understand those people."

"Honestly," Alan replied, "me neither. At least they can't hurt anyone else behind bars."

"Ouch..." Miki said, wincing. "Are you sure it's a good idea to keep bad-mouthing them?"

"Why not?" Alan asked, sarcastically. "They killed an innocent woman fifteen years ago, and didn't even attempt to make amends, not until someone tried to kill them!" He glared at the door as if Vincent Rigden had just walked through it. "I should've let them die."

"Then you'd be no better than the Reaper," Miki said, harshly. "Come on, Alan. I thought you were made of better stuff than that."

Alan sighed irritably. "I just..." he muttered. "It's just been one of those weeks."

"For all of us," Miki said. "Think about how Zapper must be feeling, since he found out that the woman he loved was a murderous psychopath! How do you expect him to be able to get over something like that?!"

"I don't know..." Alan replied. "Last time I tried to talk to him, do you know what he said to me? 'Do me a favour and don't talk to me for a long time'. It's like he's blaming me for everything!"

Miki sighed. She could not understand the way some people's minds work, a thought she found hilarious since she was a psychic.

"I feel like everything's breaking down," Alan continued. "Obatala and Berokash are still away, Zapper's mourning, and Sparks is dead... Everyone I get to know either dies or leaves. I honestly think I've been cursed since those damn experiments..."

"Oh, knock it off, Minya!" Miki suddenly exclaimed. "You really do get on my nerves sometimes, with that whole 'I live while everyone dies' malarkey! Can't you just shut up and enjoy what you've got in the here and now?!"

Alan turned to her with wide eyes. It wasn't often that Miki exploded like that, yet here she was browbeating him into stopping being so stupid. That was one of the many things that he loved about her; she was able to speak straight, smart common sense whenever it failed him. He shook his head, a smirk spreading across his face.

"Minya?" he asked.

"You heard me," Miki smirked. "It's short for Mini-Godzilla. I thought it sounded cute for a pet-name."

At this, Alan couldn't help but laugh. Knowing what he was, she was still able to make jokes about it. Maybe this whole thing could work out after all. His thoughts were abruptly interrupted by the sound of his commlink announcing an incoming call. He groaned as he saw who was on the other end of the line.

"What is it?" Miki asked.

"It's Johnson," Alan said. "I suppose I'd better take this..."

**THE END**


End file.
